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Probably one of the oldest dolmens in the world (5 to 7 thousand years old) is under risk of being lost forever if action is not taken. It now sits submerged inside a reservoir. It completely got out of the waters in 2019 and the news of its reappearace became viral all over the world, making it one of the best known dolmens in the world, probably second only to the English Stonehenge.
Authorities are making research as deterioration advances irreversibly. How many years till it all crumbles to pieces? geologists suggest just a few decades. A heroic local association, Raíces de Peralêda, is the only voice fighting for its preservation. You can support them by signing here.
This video will be a bit different than usual,
because there’s not much known about this ancient monument and because the focus
isn’t necessarily on the unknown history but the unknown future of this monument.
I’ve mentioned the importance of preservation of ancient sites in the past,
and I will keep mentioning this regularly in the future.
If we lose a piece of our ancient human history, we will lose a piece of our identity as a species.
Unfortunately the Dolmen of Guadalperal, otherwise known as the Spanish Stonehenge
is at risk of completely disappearing from the face of the earth if changes are not made in time.
This monument spends most of its time being submerged under water and the stones have been
eroding at a fast rate, so today it’s time to look into the importance of preservation.
My name is Kayleigh, forgive me for my long intro but here we go.
The treasure of Guadalperal, the Spanish Stonehenge, the Dolmen of Guadalperal, many names
for a unique monument in the province of Cáceres in the autonomous community of Extremadura.
This ancient monument was discovered in 1926 during a
research and excavation campaign led by German Archaeologist Hugo Obermaier. A
After his death the German couple Georg and Vera Leisner took charge in compiling all
the documentation that was scattered between the University of Freiburg
and the Alba estate; they eventually made a scientific publication from these documents.
This ancient monument looked vastly different in prehistoric times than what we see today,
the difference between what once was and what we now see is staggering.
I explained in my Dutch Dolmen video I made about a year ago that most Dolmen found in
Europe are the skeletal remains of the burial mounds they once were,
and this particular monument is a great example to that.
If I ask some of my long-time viewers who they would guess
as the builders of this ancient monument
I feel like some of them would guess; people of the beaker culture, and they would be right.
Of course once again we speak of the Beaker Culture
as we have done so incredibly often in the past already.
Sometimes it gets referred to as the Bell Beaker Phenomenon due to these ancient people
being widespread all over Europe with similar pottery styles in their early days
and similar Megalithic architectural cultures.
Almost all burial mounds, henges and dolmen I’ve covered in the
past were constructed by people from a beaker culture, whether they were of
the Bell beaker culture like we’ve seen in England, Scotland and Ireland or the Funnel
beaker culture as we saw in the Netherlands with the Dutch Dolmen.
Eventually these beaker cultures would all show regionalization over time, creating different
styles of pottery showing the distinct differences between the cultures hundreds of years later.
Let’s get into the characteristics of the ancient structure.
Between 3000 and 2000 BCE the ancient people from the Bell Beaker Culture in the area
placed between 140 and 150 granite orthostats in a vertical arrangement,
within this arrangement was an oval shaped chamber which was approximately 5 meters in diameter.
An eastern entrance leads to a passage measuring 21 meters long and between 1.3
and 1.4 meters wide led into this chamber, in this entrance archaeologists found a Pillar
stone of 2 meters in height with a carved serpent and several bowls.
It is believed that these carvings were made as protection or as to
signify the importance of this sacred monument.
The serpent carving could signify the Tagus river as well,
as this monument stood near the original flow of the river long ago, several studies have
noticed the similarities between the meanders of the river and the pattern on the Pillar,
the latest research points to this being the case instead of the previously believed snake pattern.
The chamber and passage were covered by a mound of earth and gravel,
in a similar fashion as the burial mounds in Ireland that we have covered in the past.
This particular monument was surrounded by another circular ring that most likely served to uphold
the upper mound, possibly due to the sloping of the terrain where this monument is located.
When this monument was first discovered and documented the archaeologists figured out that
it would have most likely been a burial mound with a possible second purpose of being a solar temple.
I personally think this is highly possible as we
have seen with Newgrange that a monument can have a dual purpose.
Or as we’ve seen with the cairns at Carrowkeel, a triple purpose with the alignments to the rising
and setting of the moon as well as the rising and setting of the sun and containing burials inside.
When the Romans settled in the area in the third century BCE they started to remove earth and
gravel from the mound, looting the monument and leaving the skeletal structure intact.
They found this out by the left coins,
ceramic pottery and a grinding stone that were discovered by the archaeologists.
And they discovered the Roman city of Augustobriga on the banks of the river Tagus as well;
this city grew to approximately 2000 inhabitants before it was abandoned.
We don’t know when it was abandoned and we have no clear indication on when the city was established,
this is due to the lack of archaeological research.
The archaeologists believed that by the time the Romans left the
area the mound would have entirely disappeared leaving only the orthostats and capstones.
Near the monument they discovered a dump of artefacts, in this they found 11 axes,
pottery fragments, flint knives and a copper awl.
They discovered a settlement approximately dating from the same time as the construction
of the monument nearby as well, it is believed the mound builders would have
lived in this settlement during and most likely after construction took place.
In this settlement they found hearths, charcoal and ash stains and a lot of pottery fragments,
mills and stones to sharpen axes and other objects.
I’ve spent many hours trying to figure out where this settlement was located, but due to a lack of
research in the area, no mention of it in any of the sources I could find and no clear indication
of them on Google maps, I had to give up on trying to identify this settlement’s location.
To think that for thousands of years this monument stood in its place, slowly being damaged as the
Romans took away the mound leaving the stones to bear the elements, but this wasn’t the worst that
happened to this structure, as these stones can survive millennia of weather erosion.
No, unfortunately this monument had to endure a worse fate..
In 1963 construction of the Valdecañas dam on the Tagus river started,
which filled the Valdecañas reservoir with water and flooded the monument.
The nearby Roman town Augustóbriga on the opposite bank was flooded as well.
Nowadays the monument is hidden under water 90%
of the time and only visible in times of drought when the water level is low.
Because the monument is submerged most of the time it has rapidly deteriorated,
the stones are heavily eroded and the engravings are damaged.
In 2019 a drought spell was severe enough for the water to retreat completely making the
monument entirely visible for the first time since it submerged more than 56 years prior.
A Nasa photograph showed the stones on dry soil revealing its more than 140 stones.
This allowed for the observation of the damage and deterioration of the monument
and actions have since been launched for the conservation of the monument and a declaration as
an Asset of Cultural Interest in order to receive Protection of the Spanish Historical Heritage.
Spain is the leading country when it comes to its number of dams and reservoirs in Europe,
unfortunately all these dams and reservoirs meant that many hectares of land would be flooded,
including occupied settlements and cultural heritage.
The Valdecañas reservoir didn’t just submerge the neolithic dolmen de Guadalperal, but it also
submerged the Roman city Augustobriga which wasn’t even fully excavated when the dam was constructed.
Thankfully the Pórtico de Curia de Talavera la Vieja was preserved and relocated on a hill 6.5
kilometers away from its original location next to the road overlooking the Valdecañas reservoir.
4 front columns and 2 side columns form the main facade with the architrave
and above it is the small rounded arch.
This portico was made from granite and this is the only one of its
kind that is preserved in the entire Roman Empire.
3 columns from the La Cilla temple were preserved as well on this hill.
The city of Augustóbriga had walls surrounding the city providing protection, the centre was where
the Forum was located with administrative and religious buildings surrounding it.
The city used to have an aqueduct about 1 meter high and a system of underground
channels that distributed water from a reservoir.
Remains of thermal baths and roads have been discovered as well.
Most of this knowledge about this ancient city comes from documents
from José Cornide and Ignacio Hermosilla in the 18th century.
Unfortunately due to the flooding of this ancient city the archaeological deposits
in the soil have most likely disappeared forever.
There is a high number of cultural heritage elements that are currently
flooded and submerged in Spanish dammed waters,
but despite this being a high number, there is no actual complete catalogue on home many exactly.
What’s even more concerning is the fact that scientific knowledge about the state
of conservation and deterioration to which it is exposed is practically non-existent..
Besides this there is a shortage of professionals with scientific
training to research these underwater heritage sites.
Then there is the fact that these reservoirs are dredged
and emptied frequently for repairs of drains and other necessities.
The heritage that is submerged in reservoirs therefore is exposed to very sharp and
frequent rises and decreases in the water level as a result of these needed repairs.
And of course the alternating periods of rainfall and drought, both increasingly extreme and more
frequent result in the partial or complete outcropping of cultural heritage elements.
The main cause of the deterioration of the stones is the salt in the water
that when it dries it crystallizes, this process is intensified by wet and dry cycles.
The crystallization of salts inside the porous materials (like the stones of the Guadalperal
Dolmen) leads to their total disintegration and complete loss of material over time.
It’s been known for a while in the field of heritage science that one of the most
important causes of degradation of cultural heritage is the change in
the climatic conditions in which they are located.
As we’ve seen with the Megalithic Temple Complex of Mnajdra in Malta
they identified the deterioration of the stones
due to the change in the conditions with the salty sea water, sea winds and acid rains.
They made the conscious decision of constructing the canopies around the
structures to preserve them and protect them from these changes and weather elements.
Preservation can be done right, just like in Egypt when the Aswan dam was constructed
they relocated the Great Temple of Ramses II and the smaller temples to Nefertari and Hathor
so they wouldn’t become submerged under the water,
this was done to preserve the structures and protect them from the elements.
You can clearly see in this photo the old locations and the new locations,
the new locations now hold the precise reconstructions of the original temples.
The weather is most likely going to increase in extremes and frequency,
if we want to preserve and protect cultural heritage
like the Guadalperal dolmen we need to relocate it in a period of drought.
This way the stones won’t become submerged once more, therefore the rapid state of deterioration
will be slowed down, giving the people enough time to figure out the next step in preservation,
whether that is the construction of a canopy against salty winds or acidic rain
or a new method, that is something scientists need to figure out.
As for the Augustóbriga settlement, there is most likely the need for a dike to protect the ancient
city from becoming submerged again in the future, that way the archaeologists are able to start
carrying out excavations in hopes they can find and preserve artefacts of the ancient settlement.
Of course these solutions don’t take the extremes of climate change in mind, but they could at the
very least slow down the deterioration and disintegration of these structures.
Since the Guadalperal dolmen became completely visible in 2019 there is
more advocacy to preserve the monument, and actions have been launched for its conservation,
the Raíces de Peraleda association is requesting it’s recovery from the appreciable deterioration.
This could be positive news,
all we can do now is hope they will take action soon and that it won’t be too late.
But with that said, you have reached the end of this video
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