Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The megalithic site of Changé, at the edge of Saint-Piat and Maintenon (Eure-et-Loir), is a neolithic necropolis composed of four monuments: three dolmens (the Grenouille, Petit, the Cradle) and a menhir (the Gargantua goal), aligned on an east-west axis. Found in 1924 by Léon Petit, then studied by Michel Souty (1975) and Dominique Jagu (from 1983), it reveals a continuous occupation between 4500 and 2500 BC. Analyses show that the site was a peninsula at the confluence of the Eure and a tributary, the materials (stone, limestone) being extracted locally.

The dolmens Petit and du Berceau illustrate distinct uses: the first, semicircular and covered with a cairn, housed a dozen skeletons (one with a collar of fox canine), dated between 3770 and 4498 BC. The Cradle, covered with a slab of 30 tons, presents engravings of axes and idols on its orthostats, suggesting a ceremonial role rather than funeral. After 100-200 years, the site is transformed: the cairn of the Petit dolmen is dismantled to form a circle of stones, a ditch is dug, and its cover table is erected by menhir.

A third phase marks the definitive abandonment around 2500 B.C.: the slab of the Dolmen Petit is reversed, a pillar of the Cradle is removed (breaking its table in two), and the whole is covered with a tumulus of 30 m in diameter. The site is reoccupied at the Bronze Age by the Gauls (traces of fanums and ditches), then in the 5th–VIth century by the Merovingians, who set up a necropolis of 100 tombs in the tumulus. In the Middle Ages, a quarry of sand and gravel is exploited nearby.

The excavations revealed remarkable artifacts: flint tools (attested size workshop), hunting pottery, bones of animals (dogs, pigs), and Gaulish coins of La Tene D. The engravings of the Berceau, studied by Yves Chevalier (1972), and the carbon dates 14 (especially between 4350 and 2600 BC for the ditch) confirm the ritual and symbolic importance of the site, unique in Eure-et-Loir by its concentration of megaliths.

Ranked a Historical Monument in 1974 for the Gargantua Goal and the Cradle, the site benefits from innovative methods of study (aerial photographs, electromagnetic prospecting) that allowed to reconstruct its past environment. The work of Dominique Jagu (1998) highlights his dual vocation, both sepulchral and cultual, as well as his successive reuses, reflecting 6,000 years of local history, from Neolithic to Merovingians.

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