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Origin and history

The Menhir of the Grande Borne, also known as Head of Chevau, is one of the few megaliths classified in the Châtillonnais, a region of the north of the Côte d'Or in Burgundy-Franche-Comté. It stands in a field to the right of the road linking Coulmier-le-Sec to Villaines-en-Duesmois, near the farm of Rippes. Ranked as a historical monument in 1889, it bears witness to the prehistoric occupation of this territory, although the Châtillonnais is best known for its later Celtic sites, such as Vix or Vertillum.

The Menhirs du Châtillonnais, dated from the Neolithic, form a scattered set of erect stones, some of which have been displaced or reused over the centuries. Coulmier-le-Sec, unlike others such as the Menhir de Châtillon (transferred to Mauvilly and then to Châtillon-sur-Seine), remained in situ. These funeral or symbolic monuments probably marked places of assembly, borders, or sacred sites for the agro-pastoral communities of the time.

The Châtillonnais contains other prehistoric remains, such as rock shelters (Baumes de Balot) or coupula stones (Montliot-et-Courcelles), revealing an ancient and diverse human occupation. The menhirs, although less studied than the sites of the Iron Age, recall that this region was already a cultural crossroads long before the arrival of the Celts. Their preservation, often due to early rankings such as that of 1889, allows today to study these discreet traces of the past.

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