Dolmen d'Oppagne - Wéris

The dolmen of Oppagne is also called the southern passage tomb, Wéris II.

Some 5,000 years ago, in the late Neolithic (late New Stone Age), people from a group of the Seine-Oise-Marne culture (SOM) erected the dolmens here.

The "dolmen of Oppagne" (dolmen of Oppagne) was discovered at the end of the 19th century. One fine day in the year 1888, Félix, son of farmer Antoine Lambert, decided to make things easier for his father: he would finally dig up and drag away the large stones that always made plowing the field extra heavy. But... Félix did nothing without thinking, he always kept his mind on it. Pausing and surveying the excavated stones, he wondered if this might not be a dolmen: he saw a remarkable resemblance to that dolmen at Wéris, a mile or so away.

The rectangular burial chamber has internal dimensions L 5 mx Br 1.00 - 1.80 mx H 0.7 - 0.9 m). The burial chamber is formed by four bearing stones, three capstones , a headboard stone and an entrance stone . In the latter a round arch has been knocked out, the opening forms an inverted U. The deceased were brought into the burial chamber along this. As with the Wéris dolmen, this dolmen has a short, uncovered vestibule . Behind the burial chamber is a large block of puddingstone. Why it is there, what its meaning is, remains unknown until now. The many small stones found on the site were used as stoppers to plug the space between the large stones.

The remains of bones found in the Oppagne dolmen indicate the inhumation of at least a dozen individuals of different ages. The grave goods found were stone objects such as scrapers, knocking stones and stem points (arrowheads). Shards from Bell Beaker pottery indicate a later reuse of the monument between 2200-2000 BC by a group of the Bell Beaker culture

Willem Vandenameele