Almonda is a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

of around 300 inhabitants in the civil parish of

Zibreira Zibreira is a civil parish in Portugal, located within the municipality of Torres Novas, in the Santarém District. It is noted for the Aroeria cave, where the Aroeira 3 skull of a 400,000 year old Homo Heidelbergensis was found, being the oldest ...

, within the municipality of

Torres Novas Torres Novas () is a Portuguese municipality in the district of Santarém, in the Médio Tejo of the Centro region. The population of the municipality was approximately 36,717 (from the 2011 census), with the city of Torres Novas (seat of the muni ...

and the

Santarém District The District of Santarém ( pt, Distrito de Santarém ) is a district of Portugal, located in Portugal's ''Centro Region''. The district capital is the city of Santarém. The district is the 3rd largest in Portugal, with an area of , and a pop ...

. The village was named after the river Almonda, whose source is located nearby. Aroeira3

Almonda is noted for the Aroeira cave (possibly the largest cave in the country) in the

Karst Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ro ...

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

landscape, where the 400,000 year old

Aroeira 3 Aroeira 3 is a 400,000 year old ''Homo heidelbergensis'' hominid skull which was discovered in the Aroeira cave, Portugal. It is the earliest human trace in Portugal. ''H. heidelbergensis'' existed at the transition between ''Homo erectus'' and e ...

skull of a

Homo Heidelbergensis ''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of ''H. erectus'' in ...

was discovered in 2014. It is the oldest trace of human history in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

.Phys Org, March 13, 2017, 400,000-year-old fossil human cranium is oldest ever found in Portugal
/ref>Joan Daura
et al.: ''New Middle Pleistocene hominin cranium from Gruta da Aroeira (Portugal).'' In ''

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Sci ...

(PNAS)'' Online pre-release of 13 March 2017.The primitive man from Portugal
Article from 16 March 2017 in des Hamburger Abendblatt, accessed March 22, 2017.''Crânio de 400 mil anos é o fóssil humano mais antigo descoberto em Portugal''
(''English: 400,000 year old skull found; the oldest human fossil in Portugal'') Article from March 13, 2017 in the Portuguese newspaper Público, accessed March 22, 2017. The local conditions of

topography and abundance of water provided the possibility of obtaining energy, and thus, in 1818, Domingos Ardisson established the Renova paper factory. The company is an important commercial engine of the

region, and well-known both nationally and internationally. Although the company has expanded, the "old factory" continues to function.

References

Archaeological sites in Santarém District Villages in Portugal Populated places in Santarém District {{Portugal-stub