Dolmen de Peyrelevade
MonumentHidden Treasure
Stood as a stone sentinel since the Neolithic era on the causses of the Périgord Noir, the dolmen de Peyrelevade reveals the extraordinary architectural mastery of the first farmers of the Dordogne, having been listed as a Monument historique as early as 1910.
History
Standing on the limestone plateau overlooking the Dordogne valley, the Peyrelevade dolmen is one of the best-preserved megalithic remains in the Périgord Noir. Its name, in Occitan, literally means "raised stone", a popular designation that alone conveys the impression of brute force conveyed by the edifice: a colossal stone table held in balance by orthostats driven into the earth over five millennia ago. This collective funerary monument belongs to the tradition of corridor dolmens characteristic of the Middle and Final Neolithic of south-western France, a type of sepulchral architecture found all along the Quercy and Périgord plateaux. The burial chamber, enclosed on its sides by carefully fitted vertical slabs, was originally covered by a mound of earth and dry stone, now largely eroded, which gave it the appearance of an artificial hill visible from a distance from the cultivated land of the Neolithic community. The visit is striking in its simplicity: here, there is no need for an audioguide to feel the weight of history. The massive, slightly sloping roof slab catches the light differently at different times of the day, revealing golden hues at dawn that contrast with the dark green of the surrounding vegetation. You approach the monument with a growing sense of contemplation, as if the generations of dead deposited here since the dawn of agriculture continue to haunt the stones. The natural setting reinforces this timeless impression. The pubescent oaks and junipers of the causse form a discreet setting around the dolmen, preserving an atmosphere of solitude conducive to meditation. The commune of Vitrac, tucked away in a meander of the Dordogne, also offers exceptional scope for exploration for lovers of prehistory and rural heritage, with its medieval castles, caves and picturesque villages.
Architecture
The Peyrelevade dolmen has the classic morphology of the simple dolmens of Périgord and Quercy: a quadrangular burial chamber delimited by four or five orthostats in local limestone, topped by a large horizontal cover slab. The supporting pillars, set vertically into the ground to a depth sufficient to ensure the stability of the whole, are probably between 1.20 and 1.80 metres high, defining an inner chamber accessible from a side that remains partially open or closed by a lighter entrance slab. The covering table, estimated to cover between 4 and 8 square metres, rests on these supports with remarkable precision, without the use of any binding agent. The materials used came exclusively from the local limestone bedrock, characteristic of the Perigord limestone plateaux: a compact beige to ochre-coloured limestone, resistant to erosion and frost, which Neolithic builders exploited by taking advantage of the natural cleavage planes in the rock to produce slabs with relatively flat faces. The total absence of metal tools means that the blocks were extracted and roughly cut using wooden wedges, river pebbles and deer antlers. All that remains today of the original burial mound, which covered the entire structure under a dry stone cairn and a layer of rammed earth, are traces of the ground, the monument having been gradually cleared over the centuries by natural erosion and farming activities. This exposure gives the dolmen its characteristic silhouette of a "stone table" perched in the landscape, an image that the medieval period did much to mythologise.
Related Figures
Communautés néolithiques du Périgord (Ve-IIIe millénaire av. J.-C.) — bâtisseurs et utilisateurs du dolmenFélix Jouannet (1765-1845) — antiquaire périgourdin, pionnier du recensement des mégalithes de la DordogneGabriel de Mortillet (1821-1898) — préhistorien français, contributeur à la classification des monuments mégalithiques du Sud-OuestÉdouard Piette (1827-1906) — archéologue qui contribua à la reconnaissance scientifique des dolmens périgourdinsMembres de la Société Historique et Archéologique du Périgord (XIXe s.) — artisans du classement du monument
