Dolmen de San Sebastián Sur
DatedEst. 4000–3000 BCE
Photo Mentxuwiki · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Dolmen of San Sebastián Sur, also known as El Montecillo, is a megalithic funerary monument between the villages of Anda and Katadiano, in the municipality of Kuartango, province of Álava, Spain. It is protected as a Qualified Cultural Asset (monumental ensemble) and is a Basque government archaeological site; a typological estimate places it between 4000 and 3000 BCE.
With a diameter of 30 metres it is considered the largest dolmen in the Basque Country.
Read on Wikipedia3 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 San Sebastián Sur
Three other dolmens lie nearby: San Sebastián Norte, 220 metres to the north-north-east, and the two dolmens of Gurpide, a little over 200 metres to the south-east.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de San Sebastián SurCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de San Sebastián SurCC BY-SA 4.0
The dolmen stands on a broad meadow near the course of the river Bayas. Three other dolmens lie nearby: San Sebastián Norte, 220 metres to the north-north-east, and the two dolmens of Gurpide, a little over 200 metres to the south-east. The monument is 500 metres south of Anda, 220 metres south of the site of the ruined hermitage of San Sebastián and 30 metres to the left of the so-called Camino real that runs from Anda to Sendadiano and Zuazo de Cuartango.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de San Sebastián SurCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de San Sebastián SurCC BY-SA 4.0
The chamber is hexagonal and formed of nine slabs, seven in their original position and two lying on the western part of the mound, which may have belonged to the roof. The corridor ran to the east. Geophysical studies suggest it could have measured about 10 m, but only two of its slabs have so far been recovered.
The mound was originally circular but is badly deformed by agricultural work, the extraction of aggregate, looting, earlier excavations and the action of roots. It now measures 38 m east to west and between 15 and 21 m north to south.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de San Sebastián SurCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de San Sebastián SurCC BY-SA 4.0
The dolmen was discovered in 1871 by Obdulio Perea, Ricardo Becerro de Bengoa and Sotero Mantelli. Ladislao Velasco excavated it in 1878 or 1879 but recovered only human remains. Julián Apraiz excavated in 1892, and José Miguel de Barandiarán and Juan María Apellaniz in 1957. New archaeological work was funded in 2018 by the Diputación Foral de Álava and the Basque Government.
The excavations of 2021 showed that the monument was modified during its period of use. The burial chamber was blocked, the access corridor rebuilt and the mound reshaped. Alterations of this kind were usual in regional megalithism, and they reflect changing needs, funerary rites and attitudes to the monuments over time.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de San Sebastián SurCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de San Sebastián SurCC BY-SA 4.0
Objects recovered include geometric microliths, unretouched blades, a point with stem and wings, a point with flat retouch, circular necklace beads, pendants of bone and shell, a metal point of Palmela type and many pottery fragments. José Miguel de Barandiarán and Domingo Fernández Medrano recorded that triangular points had until then appeared in Spain only in the dolmens of La Lastra, San Sebastián Sur, Ashorrigana and Otsaairte.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de San Sebastián SurCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de San Sebastián SurCC BY-SA 4.0
The monument is said to have formed part of the landscape of this valley for some 5,500 years, from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods.
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.
Photographs
2 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
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
- 42°54′39″ N, 2°53′52″ WFor a GPS or map app: 42.91097, -2.89784
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.
- DolmenDolmen San Sebastián Sud4000–3000 BCE
Dolmen de San Sebastián Norte4300–1200 BCE- DolmenDolmen San Sebastián Nord4000–3000 BCE
- DolmenGurpide Norte4000–3000 BCE
dolmen de Gurpide Norte4000–3000 BCE
dolmen de Gurpide Sur4000–3000 BCE- DolmenGurpide Sur4000–3000 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Sendadiano Ii4300–1200 BCE
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q122817220wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Dolmen de San Sebastián Sur" (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