The provenance of the stones in the Menga dolmen reveals one of the greatest engineering feats of the Neolithic

Abstract

The technical and intellectual capabilities of past societies are reflected in the monuments they were able to build. Tracking the provenance of the stones utilised to build prehistoric megalithic monuments, through geological studies, is of utmost interest for interpreting ancient architectures as well as to contribute to their protection. According to the scarce information available, most stones used in European prehistoric megaliths originate from locations near the construction sites, which would have made transport easier. The Menga dolmen (Antequera, Malaga, Spain), listed in UNESCO World Heritage since July 2016, was designed and built with stones weighting up to nearly 150 tons, thus becoming the most colossal stone monument built in its time in Europe (c. 3800–3600 BC). Our study (based on high-resolution geological mapping as well as petrographic and stratigraphic analyses) reveals key geological and archaeological evidence to establish the precise provenance of the massive stones used in the construction of this monument. These stones are mostly calcarenites, a poorly cemented detrital sedimentary rock comparable to those known as 'soft stones' in modern civil engineering. They were quarried from a rocky outcrop located at a distance of approximately 1 km. In this study, it can be inferred the use of soft stone in Menga reveals the human application of new wood and stone technologies enabling the construction of a monument of unprecedented magnitude and complexity.

From the Mountain and the Sea: Provenance of the Stones of the Prehistoric La Pastora Tholos (Valencina de la Concepción, Seville, Spain)

“…This analysis is basic for the determination of the source areas (i.e., quarries) and the estimation of transport distances. With this knowledge, it is more feasible to approach the characteristics of the societies that built them, including their social organization, worldview, knowledge of the natural environment, and even their technical capabilities [11]. Among these capabilities, those related to the extraction of rocks and their transport are very significant, although it is not always possible to obtain direct data on these activities.…”

“…In the Iberian Peninsula, where thousands of megaliths have been discovered and catalogued, however, geoarchaeological approaches have been undertaken only in a few cases. These include La Chabola de la Hechicera, Dolmen de Aizkomendi, and Puigseslloses [15][16][17][18], in the north; Vale Rodrigo, Anta da Lajinha, and Freixo-Redondo, in Portugal [19][20][21]; El Portillo in inner Iberia [22]; and Alberite [23], Palacio III [24], Panoría [25], El Pozuelo [26], and Menga [11] in the south.…”