Dolmen del prado de Lácara facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Dolmen del prado de Lácara |
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| Native name Spanish: Dolmen del prado de Lácara |
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| Location | Mérida, Spain |
| Official name: Dolmen del prado de Lácara | |
| Type | Non-movable |
| Criteria | Monument |
| Designated | 1912 |
| Reference no. | RI-51-0000106 |
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The Dolmen del prado de Lácara, also called the 'Dolmen of the Meadow of Lácara,' is a very old stone monument. It's a type of megalith called a passage tomb, which means it has a long hallway leading to a burial room.
You can find it northwest of Mérida, a city in Spain. It's right by the EX-214 road, which connects two towns: Aljucén and La Nava de Santiago. This amazing tomb was built a very long time ago, during the late Neolithic period. That was around 4,000 to 5,000 years ago!
It's one of the biggest and best-preserved ancient sites in the Extremadura area. Because it's so important, it was named a 'site of cultural interest' in 1912 and a National Monument in 1931.
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Where is the Dolmen Located?
Just like other ancient stone structures in Extremadura, the Dolmen del prado de Lácara sits in a natural holm oak pasture. It's on a small hill that rises above the land around it.
Close by, you can find several water sources, including the Lácara river. This river flows to the east of the monument. There are also many granite rocks nearby. These rocks were the perfect material to build the tomb long ago.
Some researchers think these large stone monuments were not just burial places. They might also have marked territories or acted as important landmarks for ancient people. Its location near old roads also suggests it was a key spot.
Even with these ideas, the Dolmen del prado de Lácara is quite isolated. The closest similar dolmens are about 13 to 15 kilometers away. This makes it hard to say if it was part of a bigger group of tombs.
What Does the Dolmen Look Like?
The Lácara dolmen is a common type found in the Extremadura region. It's a tomb with a very long and well-developed hallway. In fact, it's the longest one found in this area!
The main room, where people were buried, is almost circular. It's about five meters across. Seven huge granite slabs, called orthostats, stand upright to form this room. They lean against each other, with the tallest one in the middle acting like a key.
One of these tall slabs is still intact, standing 5.2 meters high. It shows how huge this monument originally was. These slabs were carved with a curve and tilted inwards. This helped support a large granite slab that once covered the room, but it is now gone.
The burial room and its hallway are almost twenty meters long. They face from east to west. The hallway is split into three parts: an entrance area and two smaller rooms. These are separated by pairs of vertical stone slabs.
The entrance area is like a waiting room. It probably didn't have a roof. This space might have been used for ceremonies or for leaving offerings. The two smaller rooms have flat stone roofs, called lintels. They get a bit narrower as you walk towards the main burial room.
You can still see parts of the earth mound that once covered almost the entire structure. This mound was like an artificial hill, made of reddish earth. It had a wall of rounded pebbles around its edge to hold it in place. The mound was about 28 to 35 meters wide. Today, it's 3.5 meters high, but it was much taller when first built.
History of the Dolmen
People used this dolmen for a very long time. It was also robbed many times over the centuries. Because of this, it's hard to know how many bodies were buried there or what all the original treasures were.
When archaeologists dug up the dolmen, they found small bone pieces. They also found many objects that were common in these ancient tombs. These included round ceramic pots, stone tools like knives and flint axes, and about a hundred arrowheads. People also wore pendants and necklace beads found there. Two copper axe heads were also discovered.
An interesting slate plaque idol was also found. It was rectangular with rounded edges and had carvings on the front. It also had three holes at the top, perhaps for hanging. Finally, many pieces of red ochre were found. This was likely used in ancient burial ceremonies.
All these finds show that the dolmen was first built by late Neolithic communities. This was around the end of the 4th millennium BC or the start of the 3rd millennium BC. The site was used again later during the Chalcolithic period (the Copper Age), throughout the 3rd millennium BC. This shows how long people continued to use these stone tombs. Some items, like pieces of Beaker pottery and copper tools, suggest it was even used later than that.
The dolmen was even reused in Roman and Medieval times as a place to live. This sadly damaged the burials and objects inside. Its stone structure was also attacked. For example, it was used as a quarry, and some parts were even blown up with dynamite in the late 1800s. Luckily, the dolmen was very strong, and only some parts were damaged. We can still imagine how grand it looked originally.
People have known about this dolmen for centuries. The first written mention was in 1875 by Vicente Barrantes. He called it "one of the rarest and most remarkable monuments of the Stone Age." Later, José Ramón Mélida visited it in 1908 and 1912. Thanks to her efforts, it was declared a National Monument in 1931. The first full archaeological dig happened between 1957 and 1958, led by Martín Almagro Basch.
See also
In Spanish: Dolmen del prado de Lácara para niños
- List of Bien de Interés Cultural in the Province of Badajoz
- Alcantara Dolmens
Images for kids
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The Dolmen del prado de Lácara
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