Spain: More than 500 species of menhirs have been found in Andalusia

A megalithic complex of more than 500 menhirs dating back thousands of years has been discovered in southern Spain, which could be one of Europe’s most important sites, the archaeologists behind the discovery told AFP on Thursday.

The archaeological site is located on an area of ​​600 hectares between Ayamonte and Villablanca in Huelva province (southwest) near the Guadiana River. It was intended to produce avocados, but its “archaeological potential” led to exploration that revealed its importance.

“This is the largest and most diverse concentration of menhirs assembled at one site in the Iberian Peninsula,” says researcher José Antonio Linares of the University of Huelva, one of the project directors. It was to him “a great megalithic site in Europe”. The first vertical stones of this part of La Torre-La Janera may have been erected in the 6th and / or second half of the 5th century BC.

The menhirs are numerous: 526 have been preserved “in situ” (where they were) or buried and their size varies from one to three meters in length, with different shapes, explain those responsible for the work in an article. Published in the review “Oeuvres de préhistoire”.

The site of Carnac in northwest France, one of the most important in the world, contains 3000 menhirs. Primitiva Bueno, professor of prehistory at Spain’s University of Alcalá and co-director of the project, said the La Torre-La Janera estate’s concentration of megalithic elements of great diversity and its state of good preservation give it great value. “It is not so common to have alignments and cromlechs on the same site. Here, everything is there: alignments, cromlechs and dolmens and it attracts attention”, he analysed, noting their “excellent preservation”.

A cromlech is a monument consisting of a series of stones or menhirs surrounding a small oval or circular space, a dolmen is a large horizontal stone resting on larger vertical stones and a menhir is a long stone set vertically.

The work to find these monuments was initially planned until 2026, but in the meantime, the researcher promised that there will be an area that can be visited.