Dolmen des Plassous ou Las Aspes
MonumentHidden Treasure
Dolmen des Plassous ou Las Aspes, located in Gramat (Département 46), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Gramat, Département 46, Occitanie
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 44.7729, 1.6895
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00095104
An enigmatic Neolithic vestige on the Causse de Gramat, the Plassous dolmen has been standing on its rough limestone slabs for over 5,000 years, a silent testimony to the early agricultural societies of the Quercy region.
History
In the heart of the Causse de Gramat, a harsh yet luminous limestone plateau that geologists like to compare to a Mediterranean desert of stone, the Plassous dolmen - also known as Las Aspes - stands out like a mineral punctuation mark in a landscape where time seems suspended. Listed as a Historic Monument since 1889, it is one of an exceptional group of megaliths dotting the Quercy region, discreet but indestructible, and which local farmers have lived alongside for centuries without always realising how ancient they are. This dolmen has the characteristic morphology of Neolithic funerary monuments in the south-west of France: a burial chamber made up of orthostats - large vertical slabs planted in the ground - supporting one or more horizontal covering tables. Constructed from local limestone, which is abundant on the Causse plateau, the building has a golden blond hue that is particularly striking when the sun goes down. Its age-old sturdiness is the result of a carefully thought-out layout in which the very weight of the stones ensures the cohesion of the whole. To visit the Plassous dolmen is to immerse yourself in the archaeology of the landscape as much as the monument itself. The site is surrounded by open scrubland, dotted with downy oaks, juniper and the lapiaz typical of the causse. Silence is disturbed only by the wind and the chirping of crickets in summer. This atmosphere of relative isolation accentuates the contemplative dimension of the visit, inviting you to meditate on the depth of human settlement in Quercy. The monument also draws interest from its dual name: "Plassous", an Occitan term evoking a flat, open area, and "Las Aspes", which in the langue d'oc means "asphodel" or "pointed stone", according to local custom - all indications that these megaliths were part of the vocabulary and memory of rural communities long before archaeology officially recorded them. This persistence of place names is in itself a precious intangible heritage.
Architecture
The Plassous dolmen belong to the type of simple single-chamber dolmens, the most widespread megalithic form on the Lot limestone plateaux. Its basic structure is based on the assembly of several orthostats - vertical slabs of limestone from the Causse - forming the side walls and base of a rectangular or slightly trapezoidal sepulchral chamber. One or two massive covering slabs crown the whole, creating a low but protected interior space, originally intended for burial deposits. Typical dimensions for this type of monument in the region are around 2 to 3 metres in length and 1 to 1.5 metres in width, with the cover plate up to a metre thick. The material used is exclusively local Jurassic limestone, extracted from the naturally laminated slabs of the plateau. This beige to golden stone has the advantage of being relatively easy to cut and highly resistant to weathering, qualities that explain the monument's survival over more than five millennia. The surfaces of the orthostats sometimes show traces of polishing, techniques inherited from the Middle Neolithic. Originally, the monument was probably covered by a mound of earth and dry stones - the tumulus - which isolated it from view and emphasised its sacred nature. This mound has largely disappeared, leaving the ossified structure of the dolmen to the light of the causse. The orientation of the dolmen, as is often the case with monuments of this type, could be astronomical or topographical: several regional studies have shown that the access corridors to the dolmens in the Quercy region frequently face east or towards remarkable points in the landscape. This symbolic dimension of megalithic architecture, invisible to the untrained eye, adds considerably to the interpretation of the site.
Related Figures
Bâtisseurs néolithiques anonymes (vers 3500-2500 av. J.-C.) — communautés agropastorales du causse de GramatProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques, initiateur des premières politiques de protection du patrimoine préhistorique en FranceÉdouard Lartet — paléontologue et préhistorien quercynois du XIXe siècle, pionnier de l'archéologie lotoiseÉmile Cartailhac — archéologue toulousain, figure majeure de la préhistoire du Sud-Ouest, contemporain des premiers classements mégalithiquesÉrudits de la Société des Études du Lot — acteurs du recensement des dolmens ayant conduit au classement de 1889
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Dolmen des Plassous ou Las Aspes located?
Dolmen des Plassous ou Las Aspes is located in Gramat, Département 46 department, Occitanie region, France.
Is Dolmen des Plassous ou Las Aspes open to visitors?
Dolmen des Plassous ou Las Aspes is currently closed to visitors.