It's one of Europe's largest Neolithic standing stone complexes.
Archaeologists have unearthed one of Europe's largest Neolithic standing stone complexes near the city of Huelva in southwestern Spain, ahead of plans to grow avocados there.
"This pattern is not common in the Iberian Peninsula and is truly unique," said José Antonio Linares, a geoarchaeologist at Huelva University and the lead author of a new study published in the June issue of Trabajos de Historia .
But there were local rumors that menhirs had once stood on the hill, so it wasn't a complete surprise when an initial archaeological survey in 2018 confirmed there were several standing stones there. A full study in 2020 and 2021 revealed the site's importance, and the universities of Huelva and Alcalá are now funding an archaeological investigation until at least 2026, he said.
Several of the standing stones created prominent roofed tombs known as"dolmens," while others formed coffin-shaped structures known as"cists," which the archaeologists expect were used to bury the remains of the dead. Some of the most famous, such as Stonehenge, are found in Britain, but even larger"megalithic" structures are found elsewhere — such as at Carnac in France's Brittany region, where there are more than 10,000 menhirs aligned in rows.The precise dates of such megalithic structures can be hard to ascertain because rock itself cannot be reliably dated.
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