Dolmen de Can Planes
DatedEst. 4000–3000 BCE
Photo Clemens Schmillen · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Dolmen de Can Planes is a megalithic burial chamber of the Chalcolithic in La Roca del Vallès, in the province of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It is built of granite and has been entered in the Inventory of the Architectural Heritage of Catalonia since 1991.
The rectangular chamber measures 1 × 1.20 m and is 0.70 m high. It keeps its capstone and four orthostates.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Dolmen de Can Planes
Three of the uprights are perfectly in place, while the fourth has fallen over beside the dolmen on the north side.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen de Can PlanesCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen de Can PlanesCC BY-SA 4.0
The chamber is rectangular, measuring 1 × 1.20 m and 0.70 m in height. It retains four vertical orthostates and its covering slab. Three of the uprights are perfectly in place, while the fourth has fallen over beside the dolmen on the north side. The covering slab is exceptionally large and heavy, and would have been difficult to move if it were to be reused. This suggests that the monument may be a Pyrenean-type chamber, entered through a small raised door or a window. No trace of the tumulus survives, but scattered stones in the surroundings, which may have formed part of it, can be seen.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen de Can PlanesCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen de Can PlanesCC BY-SA 4.0
The first mentions of a dolmen near La Roca del Vallès date from 1913, in the Annuari of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans. In 1919 Pere Bosch Gimpera mentioned in his Prehistòria catalana a dolmen in this area, the dolmen of Can Solà. In 1944 Josep Estrada concluded that it was the same monument as the one now known as the dolmen of Can Planes.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen de Can PlanesCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen de Can PlanesCC BY-SA 4.0
Estrada worked at the dolmen in the following years with few results: barely two fragments of handmade pottery. In the woods between the dolmen and the farm of Can Planes, fragments of rudimentary pottery of Ibero-Roman tradition were found.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen de Can PlanesCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen de Can PlanesCC BY-SA 4.0
The dolmen lies in the Cordillera Litoral park, which also contains other dolmens and menhirs.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Dolmens of Andalusia, Extremadura and Galicia
Spain has a great many megalithic tombs, and the Atlas's Spanish dolmens run from Andalusia in the south to Galicia in the north-west. The finest are at Antequera in Andalusia, where the Dolmen of Menga, dated to about 3750 to 3650 BCE, is among the largest ancient megalithic structures in Europe. It is 27.5 metres long, 6 metres wide and 3.5 metres high, built with thirty-two megaliths, the largest weighing about 180 tonnes. After the chamber was finished it was covered with soil and built up into the hill seen today; when it was opened in the nineteenth century archaeologists found the skeletons of several hundred people. The Dolmen of Viera stands 70 metres away, and the tholos of El Romeral lies about 4 kilometres off; the three were inscribed as the Antequera Dolmens Site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 2016.
In the south-west, the Dolmen de Soto at Trigueros in Huelva province is a Neolithic tomb estimated to date between 3000 and 2500 BCE, one of about 200 Neolithic burial sites in the province. It was found in 1922 when its owner, Armando de Soto Morillas, wanted to build a house; the German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier found eight bodies in a fetal position with artefacts, and its engraved and painted uprights have been studied more recently.
In Galicia and Portugal a dolmen is an anta, and in Catalan-speaking areas dolmens have folk names such as cova (cave), caixa (crate or coffin), taula (table) and arca (chest). These names are tradition: they record what people made of the monuments, not what they were built for.
When visiting Menga, look at the great capstones from inside the corridor, and at the way the mound was built up over the chamber.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Dolmen of Menga, Wikipedia: Dolmen of Viera, Wikipedia: Antequera Dolmens Site, Wikipedia: Dolmen de Soto, Wikipedia: Dolmen · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1913
Les premières mentions d'un dolmen] près de la Roca del Vallès remontent à 1913, dans l'Annnuaire de l'Institut d'Estudis Catalans.
Source - 1919
En 1919, Pere Bosch Gimpera mentionne dans sa Prehistòria catalana un dolmen dans cette zone : le dolmen de Can Solà.
Source - 1944
En 1944, Josep Estrada conclut qu'il s'agissait du même dolmen que celui que nous connaissons aujourd'hui sous le nom de dolmen de Can Planes.
Source - 1991
Il est inscrit à l'Inventaire du patrimoine architectural de Catalogne depuis 1991.
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 4000–3000 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for dolmens in Spain; this site has not been dated itself. Most dolmens date from the Late Neolithic period (4000-3000 BCE); the Dolmen of Menga in Andalusia dates to about 3750-3650 BCE.Source for this date
Where it stands
Spain
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 41°35′10″ N, 2°20′26″ EFor a GPS or map app: 41.58611, 2.34056
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Roca Foradada de Can Planes4300–1200 BCE- MegalithPedra de l'Escorpí4300–1200 BCE
Dolmen de Céllecs4000–3000 BCE- MegalithPedra de les Creus4300–1200 BCE
Pedra de les Creus2800–1800 BCE
Dolmen de Can Gol II4000–3000 BCE
Roca Foradada de Can Gol4300–1200 BCE
Pedra Gravada del Turó dels Castellans4300–1200 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q21402398wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- DolmenCanPlanes.jpgClemens SchmillenCC BY-SA 4.0
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Roca Foradada de Can Planes0.5 km S
- Pedra de l'Escorpí0.5 km S
- Dolmen de Céllecs2.3 km S
- Pedra de les Creus2.5 km SW
- Pedra de les Creus2.7 km SW
- Dolmen de Can Gol II3.0 km SW
- Roca Foradada de Can Gol3.1 km SW
- Pedra Gravada del Turó dels Castellans3.2 km E
- Dolmen de Can Gol I3.3 km SW
- Cromlec de Pins Rosers4.3 km NE
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Dolmen de Can Planes" (French), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen de Can PlanesCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q21402398CC0