Spain, one of the largest megalithic concentrations in Europe discovered in Andalusia

In Spain, near Huelva (Andalusia), one of the largest megalithic concentrations in Europe has been discovered: the locations of 526 menhirs, dating from between the sixth and third millennia B.C., have been found. The results of the research were published in an article in the scientific journal Trabajos de Prehistoria, which has as its first signature that of archaeologist José Antonio Linares Catela, from the Department of History and Anthropology at the University of Huelva. The megalithic site of La Torre-La Janera, where these prehistoric monuments were found, is located between the municipal territories of Ayamonte and Villablanca, not far from the Guadiana River and the border with Portugal, and the concentration spreads over an area of 600 hectares.

The investigation led by Professor Linares Catela began in 2018 as a preventive archaeology survey in view of the installation, on nearby land, of an avocado plantation, and made use of several research, analysis and documentation techniques: surveys, geoarchaeology, geographic information technology and photogrammetry. It thus took more than three years to get to the point of publishing the results. A wide variety of megaliths were found: menhirs, or single stones; dolmens, or structures with two stones vertically and one horizontally mounted on the other two; and then burial mounds, enclosures and more. It was also discovered that the megaliths belong to different historical periods, a circumstance that contributes to the remarkable importance of the La Torre-La Janera site for the study of Iberian megalithism. Currently, laboratory studies are being conducted to date the stones more precisely. For the time being, the La Torre-La Janera megaliths help reinforce the idea that megalithism on the lands bordering the Atlantic is one of the oldest phenomena of anthropization of the land, and probably also had the function of geographically marking an area.

The menhirs found by scholars are of different formats (lenticular, ovoid, subtrapezoidal, rectangular), different sections (flat, ovoid, circular) as well as different sizes (from 1 to 3 meters in length). Most menhirs were erected in the vicinity of the outcrops where they were extracted, thus in the same places of discovery or in close proximity, as is typical, for example, of the menhirs of Brittany. Most menhirs (up to 260) are concentrated in 26 alignments and 2 cromlechs (a cromlech is defined as a set of menhirs arranged in a circle). The alignments, depending on their composition, are in rows ranging from 3 to 6 menhirs, 15-100 m long, or from two to six parallel rows with varying numbers of stones and 50-250 m in length. Both of these alignment patterns are found on the slopes or tops of prominent elevations with a continuous profile. They are oriented northwest-southeast, north-south, or east-west and contain vertical menhirs lying on foundation pits, tombstones or perimeter structures, and stone platforms. The two cromlechs lie on top of hills with a clear horizon to the east, from where one can observe the dawns of the equinoxes and solstices, which were of great importance to prehistoric people. The best-preserved stone circle consists of 9 lying menhirs, bordering a U-shaped circular space open to the east, measuring 17 x 14 meters.

The dolmens and burial mounds were built on sites with subvertical rock outcrops of grovacca, a sedimentary rock typical of these areas. These architectures must have been funerary containers, but it cannot be ruled out, the study says, that some may have been associated with evocative practices and commemorative rituals, which could also have included the deposition of offerings, as has been confirmed in burial mounds in other peninsular areas. The dolmens are found isolated or grouped together, and have three types of construction: with a dry-stone mound, and in outcrop with or without a mound. Megalithic enclosures, large open constructions articulated on several levels, inside which are found multiple reused menhirs, were also found at the site.

Ten rock carvings were also found, located in grovacca outcrops. Incised cups and circles and incised lines predominate. Some engravings are superimposed on natural erosion marks, taking advantage of linear grooves, longitudinal grooves, and sinuous grooves. Most of these engravings are associated with megaliths: this is the case with the outcrop located on the outer face of a dolmen, where there is an oval engraved by means of a low groove and cups distributed around it. They are also found in blocks outcropping around enclosures and megalithic platforms.

The diversity of the megaliths found at the La Torre-La Janera site raises several preliminary hypotheses and lines of discussion, say the study’s authors, about the prehistoric monumentalities of the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, incorporating the Lower Guadiana territory as a study area of Iberian megalithism. According to the scholars, it is likely that the first standing stones of La Torre-La Janera were erected during the second half of the VI-V millennium B.C., a proposed era for the western coast of the Algarve and Alto Alentejo. The few known alignments in the peninsular southwest, consisting of 3 or 5 stones, have in fact been placed along a similar chronology in the past. Moreover, it is likely that the wide variety of menhirs at La Torre-La Janera is the result of long-term architectural sequences of construction, transformation, and use, as inferred from the various forms of planting and the multiple compositions of the groups, possibly erected in different chronologies. The fact that the vast majority of menhirs are found next to their foundation structures or contained in burial mounds may be due to the development of monumentalization, condemnation and/or reuse practices, as has been documented in the statue-menhirs of the northwest quadrant or in the mound-menhirs of the Burgos and Las Loras moors, among other megalithic areas and expressions in the Iberian Peninsula. The dolmens and megalithic cists of La Torre-La Janera are then distinguished by the small format of the chambers and by their construction technique, which combines the transformation of rock outcrops with the placement of stone supports, dry-stone elements, and stelae. The dolmens bear similarities to the small elves of the Alentejo. These funerary constructions, organized in groups of two or three graves, have been framed in an early phase of megalithism, similar to those in the necropolis of the western Algarve. The spatial association between dolmens, burial mounds, megalithic cysts and menhirs represents a great opportunity to obtain data on the synchrony and coexistence of open-air standing stones and funerary structures.

“La Torre-La Janera,” the study concludes, “is so far a unique site in the Iberian Peninsula. The stone architectures and other associated manifestations refer to different chronological phases of Recent Prehistory, coexisting monuments with different functions and technical traditions. [...] La Torre-La Janera a character of its own, being most monuments appearance ’rough’ and ’simple’. ’ This fact may be due to two complementary possibilities: a) the probable antiquity of the site, originating in a phase of archaic megalithic menhir architecture; b) the continuity of a building tradition and technical identity maintained in the area around the ’grovacca megaliths’.” As a result, say the study authors, “the site broadens the horizon of knowledge of Western European megaliths and the potential for research in the southwest of the peninsula. Its location at the southern end of the Atlantic façade enhances the geographies for the discussion of some of the most relevant issues on the genesis and chronological sequence of the monumentality of the great boulders, in the case of the establishment of their connections with the sea routes, the diachrony of its validity, the weight of architectural evolutions on a smaller and smaller scale or the connections manifesting the ways of building and organizing these territories. The discussion of antiquity and the supposed extinction of these monuments at the end of the third millennium B.C. are key issues for which the Torre-La Janera site may reveal unprecedented aspects.”

Spain, one of the largest megalithic concentrations in Europe discovered in Andalusia

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