Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Necropolis of La Boixe is a group of eleven tumulus in the communes of Vervant, Maine-de-Boixe and Cellettes in the Charente department. These funeral monuments, built in the Neolithic, are aligned on a ridge line at 166 m above sea level, overlooking the Charente valley. Four tumulus (A, B, G, and H) were distinguished by their large size, while the others had various architectures: circular, quadrangular, or polygonal chambers, covered by corbellation or covering slabs.

The first records of the tumuli date back to the monumental Statistics of the Charente (1844) by Abbé Michon, who pointed out two of them near the Boixe forest. Between 1874 and 1876, Gustave Chauvet and Auguste-François Lièvre searched the necropolis and identified eleven tumulus (named A to K), noting that three to five others had been destroyed to recover their stones. Dolmen B, classified as early as 1889, and the entire necropolis, registered in 1991, reveal complex funeral practices, with human deposits dated from the Middle and Final Neolithic.

The tumulus A, now extinct, housed a dolmen whose cover table (15 tons), called Pierre du Sacrifice, carries a groove often misinterpreted as a laugh for blood. The excavations revealed typical objects of the Middle Neolithic (polished axes, arrow frames, ceramics) and late reuses, as at the Bronze Age. The tumulus B and C, searched in 1998, revealed structured burial chambers, with engravings (haches, vertical bands) and concentric trimmings.

The tumulus D to J, of various sizes and shapes, contained collective burials, sometimes reused, with archaeological furniture including bones, flint or bone tools, and trimmings. The tumulus K, without internal structure, did not deliver any vestiges. Local folklore evokes legends, such as that of small, velvety men who carried the stones of Dolmen A. These monuments illustrate the importance of neolithic funeral practices in Charente.

The necropolis, protected since 1991, bears witness to the architectural ingenuity of neolithic societies, with various construction techniques (corbelling, covering slabs, trimmings) and a thoughtful spatial organization. The 19th and 20th centuries excavations documented these structures, while revealing the destructions associated with the recovery of materials for roads or local constructions.

External links