A total of In the French city of Carnac, 39 prehistoric menhirs have been destroyed (Northwest) to build a store for a DIY chain, the regional newspaper Ouest France reported on Wednesday.

Carnac, in Brittany, is famous all over the world for the Alignments that bear its name, which more than 2,900 menhirs in twelve converging rows, dating from about 7,000 years ago.

The ruined stone stelae were not in the alignments, but in a different area, as the whole municipal territory is full of more alignments of menhirs, as well as burial structures such as dolmens or burial mounds.

The municipality responded with a statement assuring that the same company applied for a permit to build in that area in 2014, which was not granted at the time pending a preventive excavation to determine if there were any archaeological remains.

That excavation indicated the likelihood that there was an alignment of buried menhirs, but without absolute certainty.

And eight years later, a new application was filed, this time authorized under municipal ordinances. “The investigation of this file has been carried out with the utmost accuracy,” added the city council, which emphasized that the decision was shared with the regional directorate for cultural affairs.

The researcher Christian Obelz warned in a publication last week in the digital publication “Sites & Monuments”, explaining that the destroyed menhirs, of small size, They stood in two rows, both about fifty meters long, and accompanied two Neolithic tombs.

Obelz added that these menhirs formed two of the oldest ensembles in Carnac since they one of them dated about 5500 years before the beginning of our era.

The complaint comes while the regional association Paisajes de Megalitos is preparing the presentation of a candidacy for the area to be declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco.