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ARCHAEOLOGY

Spain’s Stonehenge: Huge complex of 500 standing stones discovered

A giant megalithic complex of more than 500 standing stones has been discovered in southern Spain, which archaeologists believe could be one of the largest in Europe.

Spain's Stonehenge: Huge complex of 500 standing stones discovered
"This is the biggest and most diverse collection of standing stones grouped together in the Iberian peninsula," said Jose Antonio Linares, a researcher at Huelva University and one of the project's three directors. (Photo by Robert ATANASOVSKI / AFP)

The stones were discovered on a plot of land in Huelva, a province which flanks the southernmost part of Spain’s border with Portugal, near the Guadiana River.

Spanning some 600 hectares (1,500 acres), the land had been earmarked for an avocado planation.

But before granting the permit, the regional authorities requested a survey in light of the site’s possible archaeological significance – and revealed the presence of the stones.

“This is the biggest and most diverse collection of standing stones grouped together in the Iberian peninsula,” said José Antonio Linares, a researcher at Huelva University and one of the project’s three directors.

megalithic stones huelva spain

(José Antonio Linares-Catela et al., Trabajos de Prehistoria, 2022)

It is likely that the oldest standing stones at the La Torre-La Janera site were erected during the second half of the sixth or fifth millennium BCE, he said.

“It is a major megalithic site in Europe,” he said.

At the site, they found a large number of various types of megaliths, including standing stones, dolmens, mounds, coffin-like stone boxes called cists, and various enclosures.

(José Antonio Linares-Catela et al., Trabajos de Prehistoria, 2022)

“Standing stones were the most common finding, with 526 of them still standing or lying on the ground,” said the researchers in an article published in Trabajos de Prehistoria, a prehistoric archaeology journal in the Iberian Peninsula.

The height of the stones was between one and three metres (3-10 feet).

(José Antonio Linares-Catela et al., Trabajos de Prehistoria, 2022)

‘Excellently preserved’

At Carnac in northwestern France, which is one of the most famous megalithic sites in the world, there are some 3,000 standing stones.

One of the most striking things was finding such diverse megalithic elements grouped together in one location and how well preserved they were, said Primitiva Bueno, co-director of the project and a prehistory professor at Alcala University near Madrid.

“Finding alignments and dolmens on one site is not very common,” she told AFP.

“Here you find everything all together: alignments, cromlechs and dolmens and that is very striking,” she said, hailing the site’s “excellent conservation”.

An alignment is a linear arrangement of upright standing stones along a common axis, while a cromlech is a stone circle and a dolmen is a type of megalithic tomb usually made of two or more standing stones with a large flat ‘capstone’ on top.

Most of the menhirs were grouped into 26 alignments and two cromlechs, both located on hilltops with a clear view to the east for viewing the sunrise during the summer and winter solstices and the spring and autumn equinoxes, the researchers said.

Many of the stones are buried deep in the earth.

They will need to be carefully excavated with the work scheduled to run until 2026 but “between this year’s campaign and the start of next year’s, there will be a part of the site that can be visited”, Bueno said.

Member comments

  1. They are not Spain’s or Spanish artefacts they are Iberian or Iberian Peninsula artefacts. Spain is a relatively new invention. Get your prehistory correct. Would you describe Roman artefacts in Spain as Spanish, no! So please don’t be lazy and describe them correctly. Are they now the responsibility of the relevant Spanish authorities, YES.

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TERRORISM

‘I’ll never forgive them’: How suffering from Madrid’s 2004 bombings lingers

Twenty years after Ángeles Pedraza lost her daughter during the carnage of the Madrid train bombings that killed nearly 200 people, she still doesn't understand why.

'I'll never forgive them': How suffering from Madrid's 2004 bombings lingers

“Although it’s painful and sad every day, when a date like this comes around, it’s much worse. Because after 20 years, I still wonder why, what have these murderers achieved?” Pedraza, 65, told AFP at her home in Valdemoro.

Her memory isn’t what it used to be, but she still remembers “every single minute” of March 11, 2004, when 10 bombs exploded on four commuter trains shortly after 7:30 am, killing 192 people and wounding nearly 2,000.

Her 25-year-old daughter Miryam, she said, would normally take the train to work with her younger brother Javier and as far as the family was concerned, the day started just like any other.

Pedraza was driving to work when she heard initial reports on the radio, but didn’t worry about her kids as the explosion seemed to be at Atocha station in the city centre.

But by the time she got to work, there had been more explosions and everyone was in a panic trying to track down their loved ones. She quickly reached her son who — by a miracle — had overslept, and was safe.

But she could not get hold of Miryam despite trying everything to find her.

“We drove miles to all the hospitals and emergency rooms because every hour, they would release an updated list of those who’d been admitted,” she said.

“All we wanted was to hear her name, but we never did.”

Eventually, they went to an information centre for families where they waited. At 3:00 am, they were told she was among the dead.

‘I’ll never forgive them’

“On that day, you die yourself. Because aside from the immense pain, you cannot understand why,” she said, 20 years of grief etched on her face.

She has since spent years very publicly campaigning for justice as head of the AVT terror victims association. But her son has never once spoken of that day when his sister was killed and he was spared.

“I try not to be bitter and I don’t live with a sense of hatred, but I’ll never forgive those who did this to my daughter.”

As Pedraza was frantically contacting the hospitals, Francisco Alameda Sanchez, who was on the same train but escaped largely unharmed, was down on the tracks trying to help the wounded.

In the first carriage where one of the bombs went off, Sanchez, who was 40 at the time, found himself lying on his back with the train’s doors and windows blown out.

“I wasn’t physically hurt except I had a lot of pain in my ears, so I stayed to help people who were worse off than me,” he told AFP. He likely survived because he was sitting at the furthest point from the blast, he said.

He stayed for three more hours, during which time he witnessed horrors that never left his mind: the screaming, burnt bodies, people without legs.

With no way of carrying the injured, several of them used the train doors as stretchers, which were so heavy it took six people to carry them.

“The smell of burning, of burnt flesh, has stayed with me. And the deathly silence,” he told AFP at Atocha station.

READ MORE: 20 years since the deadliest terror attacks in Spain’s history

‘The fear has stayed with me’

His ears recovered and he went back to work, refusing therapy, thinking he “was strong and could deal with it on my own”.

But 10 years later, he was struggling so he joined the March 11 Terror Victims Association and found a therapist which transformed his life. Since 2016, he has served as secretary of the group, which has 1,900 members.

Even so, he has not shaken off the fear.

“The fear has stayed with me, every time I come here my head starts spinning,” he said, glancing around the huge station which lies close to Madrid’s Prado Museum and Retiro park.

Rut Jezabel Garcia was 24 when the train she was on exploded, sustaining a shoulder injury that needed surgery, and long-term hearing problems as well as years of psychological issues.

“Although I was on the train that suffered the least damage, it was just horrible,” said Garcia, who works in accounting and has a 10-year-old daughter.

“There are images of injured people you can’t get out of your head, even though it’s been 20 years… It was just unreal, like something from a film.”

Since then, she’s never taken the same train and avoids crowds “because I’m afraid the same thing could happen again.”

She still has shoulder pain, hearing problems and suffers from persistent insomnia.

Despite everything, she’s grateful to be alive, although the anniversary will always be difficult.

“For me, the month of March is horrible, no matter how many years pass,” she said, fighting back the tears.

“It’s always bad. If I could, I’d erase it from the calendar.”

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