The early Neolithic of the Breton peninsula is marked by the presence of menhirs erected by human groups. The purpose of the stones is still unclear but current theories are that they were used to mark territories dedicated to commemorating the dead, as ritual symbols or for architectural functions. In Belle-Île-en-Mer, a French island in the Atlantic Ocean located 14 km south of Quiberon in southern Brittany, Neolithic stone monuments are also presented as on the mainland, except that the menhirs are much less numerous, there are only left the menhirs of Jean and Jeanne, and the Pierre Sainte Anne, it holds undoubtedly to the destruction of these monuments during old or late periods (Neolithic, Gallo-Roman, medieval and modern). The Belle-Île substrate is granite-free, and a menhir named Jeanne de Runélo, destroyed around 1830, was made of granite and was over seven meters long[1].
Why did the Neolithic people favour this sober, heavy and silent construction, especially the island people of the time to make such an effort to transport large blocks from the mainland? In 2016, I visited the sites of (destroyed) menhirs, and constructed a menhir with a manually cut off stone in situ from the continental crust, then erected it on a Neolithic site where the original menhir was missing.
Natural shaped stone cut off from the continental crust rock and straightened up on a Neolithic site, video, photograph, chromogenic color print on paper
Stone : 66.8 x 41 x 31 cm. Photograph : 80 × 53,4 cm. Video : 11’00”
Stone cut off from Pointe du Skeul, Belle-Île-en-Mer (47.278745, -3.092628). Stone straightened up at the Neolithic Site Pierre branlante de Moulin Gouch, Belle-Île-en-Mer (47.305438, -3.146703)
Film : Zhao Fei. Post-production : Hu Jiaxing, Pan Xiangrong