Dolmen
MonumentHidden Treasure
Dolmen, located in Laramière (Département 46), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Laramière, Département 46, Occitanie
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 44.3503, 1.8445
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00095123
A Neolithic vestige listed as a Historic Monument, the dolmen at Laramière stand on slabs of Caussen limestone in the Quercy Blanc region, a silent witness to five millennia of human history.
History
In the heart of the Quercy Blanc region, just a stone's throw from the medieval village of Laramière, stands one of the few listed dolmens in the Lot, a megalithic monument whose mineral sobriety is matched only by its symbolic power. Set in a landscape of limestone plateaux and sparse oak groves, it invites visitors to take a dizzying journey back to the origins of human occupation of this area. This dolmen belongs to the large family of collective tombs built by the Neolithic populations who populated south-western France between the 5th and 3rd millennia BC. Its builders, sedentary farmers and stockbreeders, had developed a remarkable mastery of dry stone and a sufficiently structured social organisation to move and erect blocks weighing several tonnes. The monument thus bears witness to a much more complex society than is sometimes assumed. A visit to this megalith offers a unique experience, far removed from the hustle and bustle of tourism. Visitors can get up close to the orthostats - the large, upright slabs that form the side walls - and lay their hands on limestone that countless generations have passed by, from the dead who were laid to rest there to the peasants of the Middle Ages who found refuge there or drew building materials from it. This human continuity, inscribed in the stone itself, is one of the rarest emotions that heritage can provide. The natural setting contributes fully to the atmosphere of the place. The surrounding Causse plateau, dotted with low drystone walls and meadows in bloom in spring, provides a setting that has probably hardly changed since the Neolithic period. At dawn or at the end of the day, when the low Quercy light gilds the limestone slabs, the Laramière dolmen reveals all its majesty.
Architecture
The Laramière dolmen has the characteristic morphology of simple single-chamber dolmens, the dominant type in the Lot department. It consists of orthostats - vertical slabs of local limestone - forming a rectangular or slightly trapezoidal burial chamber, surmounted by one or more horizontal cover slabs known as bedside slabs. The whole structure originally rested under a mound of earth and stones, which held the structure together and marked out the monument in the landscape. This mound has almost entirely disappeared, as is the case for most European dolmens, leaving the slabs exposed in their austere nakedness. The Jurassic limestone from the white Quercy region, a universal building material in this region, gives the monument a cream to golden-grey hue that varies according to the amount of sunlight and humidity. This limestone, which is relatively easy to work by percussion and exploiting natural stratification planes, enabled Neolithic builders to extract blocks of the desired size and thickness. The slabs in the Laramière dolmen probably weighed several tonnes each, requiring a collective transport and lifting effort that archaeologists estimate took dozens to several hundred people. Access to the burial chamber was probably via a removable entrance slab or an access corridor that has now disappeared, a feature common to side-entrance dolmens in the Quercy region. Although the interior of the chamber was modest in size - around two to four square metres for comparable examples in the region - it was large enough to accommodate several deceased in a contracted position or the bones deposited after disinterment. Traces of red ochre have been found in some neighbouring dolmens in the Lot, indicating ritual practices that may also have taken place in the Laramière chamber.
Related Figures
Bâtisseurs néolithiques anonymes (Ve-IIIe millénaire av. J.-C.) — communautés agropastorales du Quercy ayant érigé le monumentThéophile Roussel (1816-1896) — médecin et homme politique lotois, précurseur de l'inventaire des mégalithes du Lot au XIXe siècleÉdouard Lartet (1801-1871) — géologue et paléontologue lotois, pionnier de la préhistoire française ayant contribué à la reconnaissance des monuments mégalithiques du Sud-OuestGabriel de Mortillet (1821-1898) — préhistorien qui systématisa la classification des dolmens français, intégrant les monuments quercynois dans ses synthèsesConservateurs régionaux des Monuments Historiques — responsables de l'instruction du dossier de classement aboutissant à l'arrêté du 9 novembre 1984
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Dolmen located?
Dolmen is located in Laramière, Département 46 department, Occitanie region, France.
Is Dolmen open to visitors?
Dolmen is currently closed to visitors.