Usabide

Most of the Atlas's Spanish "megalith" records lie in the Basque country and Navarre, in upland pasture where prehistoric graves are found in great numbers. The Basque Country has a multitude of megaliths, described as dolmens or as mounds, sometimes confusingly. They are burials of a collective nature, placed in spots of great visibility, often on the tops of mountain ridges, and are built of local materials. Around 800 dolmens and about 500 mounds are known, though some of the mounds could be dolmens awaiting excavation. Dolmens have a chamber of flat stones under a roof stone, covered with stones and earth; the chambers are either simple or with a corridor, and the corridor type is limited to the Ebro valley. The largest dolmens are in lowland areas and the smaller ones in the mountains. The full article, “Megalithic monuments of the Basque highlands”, follows below under About this kind of monument.

The Atlas shows 4300 BCE to 1200 BCE for this site, but that is a regional estimate for this kind of monument, not a date for this particular megalith. No excavation, radiocarbon sample or other measurement is recorded for it, so the real age could fall anywhere within the range, or outside it.

The range rests on this regional background (source: the Wikipedia article “Megalith”): Megalithic construction in southern Spain c. 4300 BC and in Malaga and Guadiana c. 3500 BC; the Mediterranean megalithic tradition ends by c. 1200 BC.