Conjunto megalítico do Olival da Pêga

The Antas do Olival da Pêga are two dolmens near the village of Telheiro, in the municipality of Reguengos de Monsaraz, in Évora, Portugal. Anta is the Portuguese name for a dolmen, a single-chamber megalithic tomb. The two Neolithic dolmens, about 300 meters apart, were used over a long period, from the Late Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. Over one hundred people were buried in each tomb, and their proximity suggests that both were part of the same megalithic complex.

The tombs were first identified by the German archaeologists Georg and Vera Leisner, who excavated Anta 1. Anta 2 was excavated from the 1990s by Victor Gonçalves and Ana Catarina Sousa of the Centre of Archaeology of the University of Lisbon (UNIARQ).

Anta 1 is one of the tallest antas in Portugal. The tomb is polygonal with wide access, but despite the very large chamber the entrance corridor is relatively small. The Leisners found many artefacts that show use by a large community: necklace beads of quartz and other materials, bone figurines of rodents and rabbits, ceramic fragments of up to 200 vases, 134 schist plaques and a small idol in shale. Two stelae in the hallway and a paved courtyard suggested to them that the dolmen belonged to the 3rd millennium BCE, and four complexes were eventually identified.

Of Anta 2, only the large burial chamber (3.40m X 4m in diameter) is visible, with its capstone in situ. The Leisners reported it in 1951 but did not excavate, because the weak support for the capstone risked breaking it. The excavations of the 1990s dated the tomb to the end of the 4th millennium BCE and revealed a 16-meter-long corridor, the longest in Portugal, which connected the anta with four other funerary structures: three beehive tombs, or tholoi, and a grave. The corridor appears to have been built in two phases, and in the second two extensively decorated schist columns were installed.

Many items from around 2900-2500 BCE were found in one tholos, including bones, flint, chert and rhyolite blades, arrowheads, dart tips, axes, polished stone artifacts, hair pins, necklace beads, ceramics, a copper dagger and a bone figurine of a fox. Most of the items are stored at UNIARQ.

Anta 1 is one of the tallest antas in Portugal. The tomb is polygonal with wide access. However, contrary to what is suggested by the very large chamber, the entrance corridor is relatively small. The Leisners found many artefacts, indicating the use of the tomb by a large community. They include necklace beads made of quartz and other materials in various shapes, bone figurines of rodents and rabbits, many ceramic fragments of up to 200 vases, with four showing decorations; 134 schist plaques; and a small idol in shale. They found two stelae in the hallway and a paved courtyard that suggested to them that the dolmen was from the 3rd millennium BCE. As their research progressed, four complexes were eventually identified.