Tumulus of Bougon facts for kids
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Les Chirons
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Tumulus A, necropolis of Les Chirons Bougon, Deux-Sèvres, France
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 Les Chirons Bougon
Location in France
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| Location | valley of the River Bougon |
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| Region | Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France |
| Coordinates | 46°22′24″N 0°03′59″W / 46.3732°N 0.0664°W |
| Altitude | 95 m (312 ft) |
| Type | Angoumoisin Tumulus |
| History | |
| Material | Limestone |
| Periods | Neolithic |
| Cultures | Chasséen |
| Site notes | |
| Archaeologists | 1840 : Charles Arnault 1968 : Claude Burnez 1972 to 1987 : Jean-Pierre Mohen, Chris Scarre |
| Public access | yes (guided tour only) |
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Monument historique
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| Designated | 1960 |
The Tumulus of Bougon (also called the Necropolis of Bougon) is a group of five ancient burial mounds. These mounds are located in Bougon, a place in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. They were built by people living in the Neolithic period, which was a very long time ago!
These amazing structures were first found in 1840. Their discovery sparked a lot of scientific interest. To protect them, the area was bought by the department of Deux-Sèvres in 1873. More digging by archaeologists started again in the late 1960s. The oldest parts of this prehistoric site, called E1 and F0, date back to about 4800 BC. That's almost 7,000 years ago!
Contents
Exploring the Ancient Site
The Bougon site sits on a flat area made of limestone rock. It's located within a bend of the Bougon river. This area was once known as "Les Chirons."
Tumulus A: A Giant Stone Tomb
This mound was built around 4000 BC. It's shaped like steps and is 42 meters wide and 5 meters tall. Inside, there's a huge rectangular room, about 7.8 by 5 meters, and 2.25 meters high. A passage leads into this room. The walls of the room are made of carefully shaped large stones. The spaces between these stones were filled with smaller dry stones.
The most impressive part is the roof: a single stone slab weighing 90 tons! It's held up by two tall, single stone pillars. These pillars also divide the room. You can even see ammonite fossils (ancient sea creatures) on these central pillars.
When archaeologists dug here in 1840, they found about 200 skeletons! These were in three layers, separated by stone slabs. They also found pottery, beads, pierced teeth, seashell chains, and stone tools. One interesting find was a diorite mace. Later digs showed that the tomb was closed soon after it was built. The passage was blocked with a large stone. Near it, they found the skull of a man who had undergone three trepanations (a type of ancient brain surgery) during his life. About 1,000 years later, people from a different culture reused the monument for more burials.
Tumulus B: Long Mound with Many Rooms
Tumulus B is a long mound, 36 meters long and 8 meters wide. It has four different rooms inside. Two of these are very small stone boxes called cists, which don't have a passage to enter. The western part of the mound has two larger rectangular rooms, each with a passage leading in from the south.
Chamber B1: A Small Stone Box
Chamber B1 is a small square room made of huge stone slabs. A 2.2-meter-long passage leads to a room that is 2 by 1.5 meters. Not many ancient items were found here. This might be because the room was cleaned out and reused around 3000 BC.
Chamber B2: Unique Burials
In Chamber B2, archaeologists found something unusual: about ten skullcaps (the top part of a skull) placed upside down in two rows. They were found with several long bones. This shows a special way of burying people.
Cists: Empty Stone Boxes
The small stone boxes (cists) in the eastern part of the mound were found in 1978. They were built with small stones and were empty. However, they might be connected to a large pile of broken pottery pieces found nearby.
Tumulus C: A Mound Built in Stages
This mound is round, made of earth, and is 57 meters wide and 5 meters tall. It's a complex structure because it was built in several steps over time. The mound covers two older structures:
- a rectangular platform
- a smaller round mound
Earlier Mound: A Small Chamber
The older mound was 24 meters wide and 4 meters tall. It had a small room (2 by 1.45 meters) that could be reached by a passage from the west. This room had six stone slabs as its floor. It contained four skeletons (including an old woman), as well as pottery and flint tools.
Platform: Mystery Structure
Attached to the east side of the earlier mound was a large platform, 20 by 40 meters in size. It might have been used for a special purpose, like preparing bodies for burial. In front of each of its three tall walls, archaeologists found a double burial of an adult and a child.
Structure D: An Ancient Wall
A 35-meter-long and 2-meter-tall wall made of dry stone divides the Bougon site into two parts. It separates Tumuli E and F from the other mounds. Finds like a piece of wood confirmed that this wall was built during the Neolithic period. It's a very rare feature among ancient stone monuments in France.
Tumulus E: Two Chambers in One Mound
This mound is 22 meters long and 10 meters wide. It has two chambers, each with a passage leading in from the east. Originally, these chambers were inside their own separate round mounds.
- Tumulus E
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Circular chamber E1.
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Chamber E1 on the left, chamber E2 on the right (distorted, curved view).
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Tumulus E, seen from the north.
Chamber E1: An Ancient Round Room
The southern chamber is 3 meters wide and has a round, beehive-like shape. Its base is built with 11 large blocks set into a trench. When archaeologists dug here, they found five or six skeletons. They also found pottery, bone tools, and stone tools. These items date back to between 4000 and 3500 BC, making it one of the oldest stone tomb structures in Central France.
Chamber E2: A Nearly Square Room
Chamber E2, in the northern part of Tumulus E, is almost square. It might have been changed around 2500 BC, long after it was first built. Items found here included arrowheads, knives, and scrapers. There was also rough, round-bottomed pottery.
Tumulus F: The Biggest Mound
This is the largest monument at Bougon! It's a long, trapezoid-shaped mound, 72 meters long and 12 to 16 meters wide. It contains two chambers (F0 and F2), one at each end. Between them are seven other structures (F1) that don't have burial chambers.
F0: One of the Oldest Tombs
This part of the monument was built in the first half of the 5th millennium BC (around 4700 BC). It's one of the oldest examples of large-scale ancient buildings in Atlantic France. It was reused around 3000 BC. Archaeologists found a round structure, 2.5 meters wide, inside a triple dry-stone wall. It has a corbelled roof, which means stones are laid in layers, each sticking out a bit further than the one below, until they meet at the top.
This tomb contained the remains of about ten people, half of them children. There weren't many artifacts, mainly two pots, six bone chisels, and some flint tools.
F1: Stabilizing Structures
The F1 area doesn't have any burial chambers. Instead, it has a series of structures, some rectangular, that helped to make the large mound stable. The walls separating these structures go all the way down to the ground where the tomb was built. The earth of the mound contained the remains of a man, a woman, and a child.
F2: A Large Stone Slab
This chamber, built in the early 4th millennium BC, is at the north end of Tumulus F. It was also reused around 3000 BC. The chamber is about 5 by 2 meters. It's covered by a huge 32-ton stone slab! This stone came from about 4 kilometers away.
Only a few items were found here, including pieces of pottery, some unusual jewelry (beads), and flint tools.
How Bougon Changed Over Time
The way the buildings at Bougon were made changed over about 1,000 years. We can see three main stages:
- First, they built round or oval mounds with chambers that had corbel-vaulted roofs (like F0).
- Next, they made longer mounds with small rectangular stone chambers (like B1).
- Finally, they built large rectangular stone chambers (like Tumulus A).
The Bougon Museum
The Bougon Museum opened in 1993. It's a modern building that includes an old farmhouse. The museum teaches visitors all about prehistory, especially the Neolithic period.
Inside, you can see items found at the Bougon site. There are also cool replicas, like a room from an ancient Neolithic village called Çatalhöyük in Turkey. You can also see copies of ancient art from a passage tomb called Gavrinis in France.
Outside the museum, there's an area for "experimental archaeology." This means they show how ancient people might have done things. For example, you can see reconstructions of how they moved and built huge stone monuments like the ones at Bougon!
- Museum rooms: Bougon necropolis and Neolithic sites of Deux-Sèvres
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Skull having been trephined three times, corridor of tumulus A, upper level, 4th millennium.
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Perforated shells, limestone and variscite pearls. Tumulus A, upper level, 4th millennium.
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Shards, Middle Neolithic. Tumulus A dolmen II. Set of Atlantic Chasséen type ceramics.
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Ceramics, Bougon necropolis. Early and middle Neolithic, 5th millennium: 1, 2, 3. Late Neolithic, late 4th millennium: 4, 5, 6.
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Late Neolithic tools, scale: height of a number: 0.39 in. Montabout tumulus, Pamproux (Deux-Sèvres).
See also
- Necropolis of Monpalais (in French)
- Tumulus du Péré (in French)
- List of megaliths (in French) in Deux-Sèvres
- List of oldest known surviving buildings
- Megaliths
- Barnenez
