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Origin and history

The menhir de la Petite-Roche, also called "menhir du Champ-de-la-Pierre", is a megalithic monument located between the Grande and the Petite-Roche, on the former commune of Saint-André-Treize-Voies, now integrated in Montréverd (Vendée). This quartzite block, measuring 2.70 m in height for 2 m in width and 1.15 m in thickness, was erected at an unknown time in Prehistory. He was the only one still standing among four menhirs reported by Abbé Baudry in the 19th century, the other three, overturned, were near the brook of Ognon.

Ranked under the title of Historic Monuments by order of 12 July 1989, this menhir marked local history by giving its name to the seigneury of Grande-Roche, the cradle of the family of La Roche-Saint-André. Its location, in the hamlet of Grande-Roche, is today recalled by odonyms like the impasse of the Menhir or that of the Pierre-Levée, two ways of Montréverd. These toponyms highlight the anchoring of the monument in collective memory and landscape.

Historical research, including that of Abbé Ferdinand Baudry in 1871 and more recent works such as Bertrand Poissonnier's Prehistoric Vendée (1997), document its archaeological importance. Menhir, owned by the commune, remains a rare testimony of funeral or symbolic practices of neolithic societies in Pays de la Loire. Its state of conservation and its approximate location (1 La Petite Roche) make it an accessible site, although its geographical accuracy is assessed as "a priori satisfactory" (level 7/10).

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