Dolmen de La Ermita
DatedEst. 4000–3000 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Dolmen de La Ermita is a megalithic tomb south of the town of Galisancho in the province of Salamanca, Spain, in a stretch of the Tormes Valley with a high concentration of megaliths. It is a passage grave (sepulcro de corredor) protected as a bien de interés cultural.
Material from the excavation campaigns shows two major phases of occupation, beginning at a date not far from 3000 BCE and continuing until well into the second millennium.
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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 La Ermita
It consists of a circular chamber and a long access passage, both covered by a tumulus of irregular oval plan.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de La ErmitaCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de La ErmitaCC BY-SA 4.0
The monument is a passage grave. It consists of a circular chamber and a long access passage, both covered by a tumulus of irregular oval plan.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de La ErmitaCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de La ErmitaCC BY-SA 4.0
The material recovered in the successive excavation campaigns indicates two major phases of use. The first begins at a date not far from 3000 BCE, and the second extends until well into the second millennium. The catalogue gives a typological estimate of 4000 to 3000 BCE for the construction of the tomb.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de La ErmitaCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de La ErmitaCC BY-SA 4.0
Spain has a great many megalithic tombs, and its dolmens run from Andalusia in the south to Galicia in the north-west.
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
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.
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
- 40°43′55″ N, 5°33′29″ WFor a GPS or map app: 40.73205, -5.55810
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.
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q5812492wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Dolmen El Teriñuelo18 km S
- Dolmen of Zafrón51 km NW
- Dolmen de la Casa del Moro61 km NW
- Dolmen de la Ermita64 km NW
- Dolmen Lamoina II80 km S
- Dolmen del Prado de las Cruces81 km E
- Túmulo de Los Tiesos85 km E
- Estatua-menhir del dolmen de Navalcán86 km SE
- Dolmen El Matón96 km SW
- dolmen de la Gran Encina100 km SW
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Dolmen de La Ermita" (Spanish), 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 (Spanish): Dolmen de La ErmitaCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q5812492CC0