Bois des Géantes dolmens, Neolithic burial site in Bourg-Saint-Andéol, France.
Bois des Géantes dolmens is a group of six megalithic burial chambers scattered across 750 meters within the Laoul forest. Each structure displays distinct architectural styles, with chamber volumes ranging from small to quite large depending on their construction method.
The dolmens were built during the late Neolithic and Chalcolithic, roughly 3000–2200 BCE, with some added in the Early Bronze Age; use continued into the Late Bronze Age. They were first mentioned in an 1837 excavation report by Bonnefont, a local surveyor. Jules Ollier de Marichard and Léopold Chiron surveyed and excavated them in the second half of the 19th century, recording seven dolmens, which were classified as monuments historiques on 31 December 1900 as the "Dolmens des Joyandes".
The name Jayandes, also written Joyandes or Jaïandes, was explained by archivist Robert Labrely as a corruption of "géantes" (giant stones). Canon Jacques Rouchier linked it to popular imagination about giants living in the Ardèche massifs whose tombs were these dolmens. Paul Sébillot compared the name to "dwellings of the Giants".
The six dolmens lie within the state-owned parcels of the Bois de Laoul, in the commune of Bourg-Saint-Andéol, spread over roughly 750 m. The terrain is dense garrigue scrub, and the sources note that locating the monuments is made difficult by the extremely rough ground and thick vegetation; older directions in the literature are imprecise. The dolmens stand in a natural depression against an outcrop of the limestone bedrock.
The dolmens were first mentioned in an 1837 excavation report by Bonnefont, a local surveyor. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, visitors left modern objects at the site, including ceremonial items, tableware and military equipment, showing it was regularly frequented long after burials ceased.
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