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Origin and history

The Dolmen de Coppière, also known as the alley covered with Copierres or Dolmen Vieille Cote, is a megalithic monument located in the municipality of Montreuil-sur-Epte, in Val-d'Oise. It was discovered in the 19th century by the prehistorian Émile Collin during an exploration, after having spotted flints and a suspect tart. Collin began excavations and published two preliminary reports. The building, carved in a limestone basement on a hillside at 118 m above sea level, was classified as historical monuments on 7 May 1895. Its atypical architecture, without an antechamber and with a single entrance, consists of three successive sections with various construction techniques, including overlapping orthostats and limestone slab walls.

The covered gangway, 15.30 m long, housed a conglomerate of disorderly bones, including 14 skulls — 11 of which showed traces of trepanations. Two archaeological layers were identified: a neolithic stratum and a second Gallo-Roman stratum, concentrated towards the centre. Funeral furniture, mainly located in the last three metres, included flint tools (lames, arrow tips, scrapers), trimming elements (pearls, pierced canines, jadeite amulet), and coarse pottery studs associated with Seine-Oise-Marne culture.

Adrien de Mortillet published a detailed report on the site in 1906, complementing the initial observations. Although no evidence of tumulus was formally documented in the search reports, it was the emergence of a terre that had initially attracted the attention of Émile Collin. The only cover table still in place at the time of the excavations was at the entrance; the others were collapsed in the driveway or had disappeared. The structure, facing west-northwest/east-southeast, follows the natural slope of the terrain, with a decreasing height of 2.15 m at the bottom at 0.60 m at the entrance.

The Dolmen de Coppière illustrates the collective funeral practices of the recent Neolithic, with deposits of bones and objects over a long period. Cranial trepanations, frequent among human remains, suggest rituals or advanced medical practices for the time. Bone and flint tools, as well as trimmings of various materials (schist, calcite, copper), testify to exchanges and an organized society capable of working local and exogenous materials. The presence of a Gallo-Roman layer indicates re-use or disturbance of the site well after its initial construction.

The protection of the monument in 1895 reflects the early interest in preserving the megalithic heritage in France. Today, dolmen remains a remarkable example of neolithic funeral architecture, combining various construction techniques and complex spatial organization. His study continues to shed light on the lifestyles, beliefs and technical skills of settled agricultural communities in the Paris region nearly 5,000 years ago.

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