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Origin and history

The dolmen of Pierre-Fade, located in the commune of Saint-Étienne-des-Champs in Puy-de-Dôme, is one of the three well preserved dolmens of the department. Unique to still own its tumulus, it stands at 674 m above sea level on a slope fracture near the Sioulet River. Its location may be related to the presence of pebbles (basalt, quartz, micaschiste) found in its structure, suggesting a relationship with the water below.

The first dolmen records date back to the 19th century, with historians such as Jean-Baptiste Bouillet and Louis Leguay. A summary excavation in 1910, now extinct, exhumed a stone axe and a terracotta bowl. In 1975, Claire Gautrand-Moser conducted a rescue search, revealing a complex architecture: four orthostats and a bedside slab in local orthognesis, covered with a reworked ovoid table. The monument, threatened by collapse, was restored in 2001 by Jean-Pierre Lagasquie.

Ranked a historical monument in 1989, the type B dolmen has a circular sepulchral chamber (2.75 m x 2.45 m) open to the southeast, surrounded by an ovoid tumulus of 8.50 m long. Its sloping construction required a levelling of the soil by coarse blocks, followed by a smaller stone input. Archaeological furniture, although disturbed by underground excavations, attests to three periods of occupation: Final Neolithic/Chalcolithic (construction), Bronze Age (reuse of funerary), and Gallo-Roman era (dispersed fabrics).

The dolmen derives its name from the "fee", evoking local folklore without a legend. Lithic objects (arrow frames, non-local flint blades) and pottery fragments suggest distant exchanges, flint from deposits 200 km northeast. The quartz and basalt pebbles, partly from the Sioulet, confirm the territorial anchoring of the monument.

Its architecture reveals a sophisticated technique: orthostats inclined to the inside, interstices filled with dry stones, and cover table in emprechyte. The tumulus, partially collapsed south due to the slope, incorporates basalt blocks transported from a 3 km outcrop. These details illustrate the collective effort and technical mastery of local neolithic communities.

Today, Pierre-Fade's dolmen remains a rare testimony of funeral practices and megalithic know-how in Auvergne, while stressing the re-appropriation of the site through the ages, from the ages of metals to the Roman period.

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