ANTEQUERA, SPAIN—According to a Live Science report, a 5,400-year-old megalithic tomb containing stone tools, pieces of pottery, and human remains has been found in southern Spain by Leonardo García Sanjuán of the University of Seville and his colleagues. Situated near the Matacabras rock shelter at La Peña de los Enamorados, or the Rock of the Lovers, light from sunrise on the summer solstice travels along a passage and onto a rock with distinctive ripples on its surface that had been placed in a cavity deep within the tomb. García Sanjuán explained that light striking the rippled rock may have been intended to create a symbolic or magical effect. “They worked very cleverly to make an arrangement of stones, which were engraved and possibly painted,” he said. The tomb is thought to have been used for burials for more than 1,000 years, beginning several hundred years after pictographs were first painted at the Matacabras rock shelter, he added. The researchers also note that the tomb at La Peña de los Enamorados is aligned with the megalithic monument known as the Dolmen of Menga, which is located about four miles away. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. To read about engraved plaques recovered from megalithic tombs in Iberia, go to "Bird Brains."
