Monteneuf

Megaliths at Monteneuf, a site discovered only in 1979
 
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45 tons

Saturday we awoke to typical Bretagne rain. Mist, light rain, then heavy rain, then light rain. And fog. The Festival organizers could not have been pleased. Nor were we. We waited as long as we could, till after lunch, then toured the site and the reconstructed neolithic village.

Monteneuf is of great interest. It was apparently a neolithic quarry, a huge out-cropping of schist, from which our ancestors were pulling megaliths and carting them off. Some 400 have been found since the site was discovered (after a forest fire) in 1979. Three were found standing, and some three dozen others have been restored to their original sites. One is more than 5 meters tall and weighs 45 tons, more than a fully-loaded 18-wheeler.

The neolithic village conveys much interesting information about everyday neolithic life, and one of the buildings is sited on original post-holes. Among demonstrations we could not stay for were how the stone were split apart, how they were moved (sometimes great distances), how they were erected, etc.

We had to get back to CDG to pick Rachel up Sunday morning, and so we drove on easterly to Chateaubriant, and our last site of the day, at Esse, the Roche aux Fees, the Rock of Fairies, which has to be one of the largest and grandest of all passage graves/allee couvertes we have seen. Over the millennia, the tumulus has worn away, leaving only the huge stones. None are carved, as at Gavirinis, but they are huge, larger than any others we have seen. We drove on into the night and rain, arriving at CDG after midnight.