Dolmen Juan Rol I
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
Dolmen Juan Rol I is a megalithic tomb in the municipality of Alcántara, Spain, and one of the best-known dolmens of the archaeological group of the Alcántara dolmens. It is built of slate and has a chamber with a long passage; the catalogue gives a typological estimate of 4000 to 3000 BCE for its construction.
Its last recognisable use was in the Early Bronze Age, between 2200 BCE and 1900 BCE, by the Bell Beaker culture.
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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 Juan Rol I
It has a wide mouth with eleven stones, some bearing cup marks and engravings, which was partly restored in 1997.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen Juan Rol ICC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen Juan Rol ICC BY-SA 4.0
The chamber preserves six of its seven original side stones. It has a wide mouth with eleven stones, some bearing cup marks and engravings, which was partly restored in 1997. The dimensions are much larger than those of the adjacent dolmen Maimón II. The chamber has a diameter of 2.3 metres and a height of 1.5 m. The passage is about 5.0 m long and 0.9 m high. The mound, which essentially surrounded the chamber but not the whole of the passage, had a diameter of about 8 m.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen Juan Rol ICC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen Juan Rol ICC BY-SA 4.0
The chamber has been looted, which explains the condition of some of the orthostats. On the original floor level there were several arrowheads, a large silvered idol with eye holes and strips of triangles as decoration, and some beads. Excavation of the floor also revealed damaged polished axes, cups, beads and arrowheads, which correspond typologically to the motifs engraved on the rock.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen Juan Rol ICC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen Juan Rol ICC BY-SA 4.0
The last users left traces in the passage, close to the chamber, where they set a transverse stone. At this spot a cup, a metal plate and a vessel were placed. The decoration is classic of the Bell Beaker culture, with the peculiarity that the vessels here are undecorated.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen Juan Rol ICC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen Juan Rol ICC BY-SA 4.0
Spain has a great many megalithic tombs. 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.
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
- 1997
Posee una boca ancha con once piedras (algunas con cuencos y grabados) parcialmente restaurada en 1997. Las dimensiones son mucho más grandes que la del adyacente dolmen Maimón II.
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.
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
- 39°39′03″ N, 6°53′29″ WFor a GPS or map app: 39.65075, -6.89132
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 Q19946350wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Dolmen Juan Rol I" (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 Juan Rol ICC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q19946350CC0