Polissoir fixe dit La Pierre Saint-Martin
MonumentHidden Treasure
An exceptional Neolithic relic, La Pierre Saint-Martin de Luzillé is one of the few listed fixed polishing sites in Indre-et-Loire, its grooves bearing the ancestral gestures of Touraine's first farmers.
© Wikimedia Commons
History
In the heart of rural Touraine, in Luzillé, a boulder of siliceous sandstone rises discreetly out of the hedged farmland: La Pierre Saint-Martin, a fixed polishing stone dating from the Neolithic period, listed as a Historic Monument since 1952. Far from the medieval fortresses and Loire châteaux for which the region is famous, this modest boulder conceals a dizzying depth of time - five to six millennia old - and bears witness to a hard-working humanity that fashioned its stone tools here with remarkable patience and precision. What makes La Pierre Saint-Martin truly unique is the legibility of its prehistoric use. The surface of the rock bears elongated cupules, grooves and polished patches carved by the repeated rubbing of axes and adzes made of tenacious rock - flint, schist or dolerite - that Neolithic craftsmen sharpened and polished with water and sand. These traces, etched into the material by tirelessly repeated gestures, constitute a veritable tactile palimpsest of prehistory in Touraine. The visitor experience is intimate and almost meditative. There's no fencing, no museographic display between the visitor and the rock: you put your hand where Neolithic hands once stood, and follow the hollow of a five-thousand-year-old groove with your finger. All around, the fields and hedgerows of eastern Touraine form a rural backdrop that reminds us that this agricultural region has a very long history. La Pierre Saint-Martin will appeal to curious families and archaeology and prehistory enthusiasts alike. Its accessible, open-air character makes it an original and unexpected stop-off on a tourist circuit focusing on the Loire Valley. For those who know how to look, this silent block of sandstone speaks more eloquently of the human condition than many of the more imposing monuments.
Architecture
The Pierre Saint-Martin belongs to the category of fixed polishers, as opposed to mobile polishers or "grinding wheels", which could be moved around. It is a natural outcrop of siliceous sandstone, the flat or slightly sloping surface of which was used as a worktable. The fine-grained sandstones found in the Touraine region, often of Cenozoic detrital origin, have ideal abrasive properties for polishing hard rock. The active surface of the polisher is covered with striations, longitudinal grooves and characteristic polished patches. The grooves, carved by the back-and-forth movement of the axes, either clamped or held in both hands, are generally U- or V-shaped in cross-section, depending on the phase of work: roughing or finishing. Some areas show a brilliant polish resulting from the repeated action of the whetstone on the support rock, by wet friction with the addition of quartz sand or silt. The size of the block, typical of fixed polishing machines in Touraine, meant that several craftsmen could work on it at the same time, or polish large items such as socket axes. The monument's integration into the rural landscape of Luzillé, in a position of slight topographical emergence, is in keeping with Neolithic settlement patterns: fixed polishing works were generally set up in the immediate vicinity of settlements and natural traffic routes, within easy reach of the polishing workshops and with access to the water that was essential for polishing. The rock also bears circular cup marks on certain faces, the function of which - secondary polisher, primitive set of merelles or ritual imprint - remains open to archaeological interpretation.
Related Figures
Saint Martin de Tours — évêque de Tours au IVe siècle, dont le nom fut attribué à la pierre lors de sa christianisation médiévaleGabriel de Mortillet — préhistorien français du XIXe siècle dont les travaux de classification des industries lithiques permirent d'identifier et de valoriser les polissoirs fixesÉrudits de la Société Archéologique de Touraine — collectif de savants locaux du XIXe-XXe siècle ayant inventorié les monuments mégalithiques et préhistoriques d'Indre-et-Loire
