Dolmen El Matón
DatedEst. 4000–3000 BCE
Photo Marbregal · CC BY-SA 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Dolmen El Matón is a megalithic archaeological site near the village of Hernán-Pérez, in the province of Cáceres in Extremadura, Spain. It is a chambered dolmen with a long passage, built of slate.
The dolmen is placed approximately in the period called the Bronze Age, dated to about 3000 BCE, while the record gives a typological estimate of 4000 to 3000 BCE. It was excavated in 1979 after a long process of looting and degradation.
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 El Matón
The considerable length of the passage is surprising in relation to the relatively modest dimensions of the chamber.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen El MatónCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen El MatónCC BY-SA 4.0
The monument is a chambered dolmen with a long passage, built of slate. The mound occupied a circle about 20 m in diameter. The oval chamber measures 1.60 m in length by 0.90 m in width. The considerable length of the passage is surprising in relation to the relatively modest dimensions of the chamber. The dolmen is in poor condition, and many of its stones are missing.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen El MatónCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen El MatónCC BY-SA 4.0
Archaeologists excavated the dolmen in 1979, after it had suffered a long process of looting and degradation.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen El MatónCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen El MatónCC BY-SA 4.0
The dolmen seems to belong to the period known as the Bronze Age, dated approximately to 3000 BCE. The record's own estimate, based on typology, spans 4000 to 3000 BCE.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen El MatónCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Dolmen El MatónCC BY-SA 4.0
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 is among the largest ancient megalithic structures in Europe.
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
- 1979
Il a été fouillé en 1979 par des archéologues après un long processus de pillage et de dégradation.
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
- 40°12′44″ N, 6°27′50″ WFor a GPS or map app: 40.21222, -6.46389
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 Q138391456wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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
- dolmen de la Gran Encina16 km SE
- Gran Dolmen de Montehermoso16 km SE
- dolmen del Tremedal16 km SE
- dolmen of the House of the Moor, Casillas de Flores28 km NW
- Anta da Pedra de Anta48 km NW
- Menhir del Cabezo64 km SW
- Dolmen Lamoina II65 km E
- Dolmen Maimón II71 km SW
- Dolmen Juan Rol I72 km SW
- Anta von Pera do Moço77 km NW
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Dolmen El Matón" (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 El MatónCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q138391456CC0