Timeline

Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The covered alley of the Gros Murs, located at Les Mureaux (Yvelines), was discovered in 1888 by M. Brault during works in his garden at 19 rue des Murets. This neolithic funeral site, excavated in 1889 by René Verneau of the National Museum of Natural History, revealed about sixty superimposed burials, accompanied by flint tools, trimmings and ceramics. The partially tripaneous skeletons were mixed with slab layers, suggesting prolonged use as a collective burial.

The walkway architecture, 9.72 m long and 1.70 to 2.10 m wide, uses sandstone orthostats and millstone roof tables, all carried from a 4 km away escarpment. The entrance, damaged by a later Roman way, could have included a trilith or pierced slabs, according to the assumptions of 19th century archaeologists. A remarkable detail is a slab adorned with a sandstone kidney including a heart-shaped scab, perhaps a symbolic representation of the mother goddess.

Ranked a historic monument in 1928 after its consolidation in 1895 and its donation to the state around 1920, the site was originally buried at 0.70 m depth. His funeral furniture, including a copper dagger of uncertain origin, is now preserved at the Museum of Man. Despite the absence of a proven tumulus, the driveway bears witness to an intense neolithic occupation in an alluvial plain, contrasting with the Roman and Merovingian traces surrounding it.

The excavations also revealed bone tools (poisons, deer and deer) and campaniform vases and trimming elements such as perforated shells. Osteological analyses, conducted by Manworker, estimated the average size of men at 1.638 m and that of women at 1.543 m. These data, combined with traces of healed trepanations, provide rare insights into the medical and funeral practices of Neolithic in Île-de-France.

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