#Huge #complex #menhirs #Spain
A huge megalithic complex of more than 500 menhirs that may be one of the largest in Europe has been discovered in southern Spain, archaeologists told AFP on Thursday.
The stones were discovered on a property in Huelva, a province flanking the southernmost part of Spain’s border with Portugal near the Guadiana River.
The approximately 600 hectare land was earmarked for an avocado plantation.
But before the permit was granted, regional authorities called for an investigation into the possible archaeological significance of the site – and uncovered the presence of the stones.
“This is the largest and most diverse collection of standing stones assembled in the Iberian Peninsula,” said Jose Antonio Linares, a researcher at the University of Huelva and one of the three directors of the project.
It is likely that the oldest standing stones at the La Torre-La Janera site date to the second half of the sixth or fifth millennium BC. were erected, he said.
“It’s one of the most important megalithic sites in Europe,” he said.
At the site, they found a large number of different types of megaliths, including standing stones, dolmens, mounds, coffin-like stone boxes called boxes, and various enclosures.
“Standing stones were the most common find, of which 526 are still standing or lying on the ground,” the researchers said in an article published in Trabajos de Prehistoria, a journal of prehistoric archeology in the Iberian Peninsula.
The height of the stones ranged from one to three meters (3-10 feet).
– ‘Excellently preserved’ –
One of the most famous megalithic sites in the world, Carnac in north-west France has around 3,000 menhirs.
One of the most striking things was how diverse megalithic elements were found grouped together in one place and how well preserved they were, said Primitiva Bueno, co-director of the project and professor of prehistory at Alcala University near Madrid.
“It’s not very common to find alignments and dolmens in one place,” she told AFP.
“Here you find everything together: alignments, cromlechs and dolmens, and that’s very noticeable,” she said, praising the site’s “excellent preservation”.
An alignment is a linear array of upstanding stones along a common axis, while a cromlech is a stone circle and a dolmen is a type of megalithic tomb, usually composed of two or more standing stones with a large flat ‘capstone’ on top.
Most of the standing stones were grouped in 26 rows and two cromlechs, both of which were on hilltops with clear views east to see the sunrise during the summer and winter solstices and the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the researchers said.
Many of the stones are buried deep in the ground.
They need to be carefully excavated, with work planned through 2026, but “between this year’s campaign and the start of next year there will be a portion of the site that can be visited,” Bueno said.
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