Lecture "Les champs de menhirs du Pays de Carnac" by Dominique Sellier

"Les champs de menhirs du pays de Carnac, patrimoine archéologique et géomorphologique" by Dominique Sellier.

Followed the next day by a field trip (to the summit of the Saint-Michel tumulus for a geomorphological reading of the Quiberon Bay landscape, then to the Kerlescan alignments, for a geomorphological reading of a stelae structure). While the menhir alignments of Brittany, like other megalithic sites around the world, still hold many mysteries as to their significance, the origin of these granitic rocks has now been demonstrated.

Neolithic man used granites that were already outcropping in the spaces they traversed, as evidenced by the weathering basins dug when the stone was horizontal, and found on the sides once the monoliths had been straightened. So, once erected, these menhirs were subjected to the weathering of the oceanic climate, as evidenced by the grooves on the walls and the pseudolapiés on the summits.

The alignments were built by their builders within a controlled landscape logic, on a ridge line parallel to a hillside overlooking Quiberon Bay and the surrounding area, according to a microtopography of depressions (touls) and interfluves (manés), with menhir sizes increasing from the lowest to the highest points of the topography.

A lecture in which geomorphological and archaeological approaches complement each other. Dominique Sellier excels at describing forms at all spatial scales.