The Anta de Carcavelos, located close to the village of Carcavelos near the town of Lousa in the municipality of

Loures Loures () is a city and a municipality in Portugal which is part of the Lisbon District, District and Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Metropolitan area of Lisbon. It is the fifth most populous municipality in the country, with a total population of 201, ...

in the

Lisbon District Lisbon District ( pt, Distrito de Lisboa, ) is a district located along the western coast of Portugal. The district capital is the city of Lisbon, which is also the national capital. From its creation until 1926, it included the area of the cur ...

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 ...

, is a stone age

dolmen A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were somet ...

(burial chamber) or megalithic monument from the

Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...

period. It is one of many such tombs that have been identified in Portugal. The Anta was a communal grave consisting of a sepulchral chamber with a polygonal shape. The remains of the tomb consist of six

cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

limestone slabs that originated in the area, which has several sizeable limestone

outcrop An outcrop or rocky outcrop is a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth. Features Outcrops do not cover the majority of the Earth's land surface because in most places the bedrock or superficial ...

s. Five of these slabs are believed to have been part of the burial chamber and the sixth part of the corridor. Near the monument there are other slabs of limestone, one of which of could have been the roof of the chamber. Based on earlier identification by Mesquita Figueiredo and Carlos Ribeiro (1813-82), the German archaeologists

Georg and Vera Leisner Georg and Vera Leisner were married German prehistorians and archaeologists who, after becoming a Lt Colonel and a nurse, spent many years studying fourth and third millennia BCE megalithic sites in Iberia. The work of the Leisners is widely ackno ...

visited the Anta of Carcavelos in 1944 as part of preparing a systematic inventory of the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

tombs of the Lisbon area. They produced drawings but did not carry out any excavations. Hastened as a result of looting at the site, the first excavations were carried out in 1986 and continued again from 1991-94, under the supervision of Gustavo Marques of the Loures municipality. Further intermittent excavation was carried out in 1998 and again in 2005-06 by Florbela Estêvão and Rui Boaventura. From the studies carried out in 1994, many bones were collected, with over 80 adult males and females believed to have been buried there. Various objects were also found such as flint arrowheads, smooth and decorated bell-shaped ceramics, dishes, cylindrical idols, and objects of adornment. The items collected came mainly from the interior of the chamber, but some were also found close to the site. In general, the number of items found was significantly lower than those found at other comparable sites in the area, such as the

Anta do Monte Abraão The Anta do Monte Abraão was a megalithic dolmen located in the parish of Monte Abraão, in Queluz, Sintra Municipality, Lisbon District, Portugal. The dolmen was first identified in 1876, by Carlos Ribeiro, who carried out excavations until 1 ...

. The evaluation of items found suggested a probable initial use of the dolmen as being in the last centuries of the 4th millennium BCE, with an intensification in its use between 3000 and 2600 BCE, this period having been identified using radiocarbon dating on an adult femur and jaw. Preliminary microscopic analysis of human bones indicates cut marks. This suggests that the bodies could have been disarticulated and/or

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prior to burial in the dolmen, which thus served as an

ossuary An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the ...

rather than as a repository of bodies. However, archaeologists recognise that further work is required to confirm this.

References

{{European Standing Stones Megalithic monuments in Portugal Prehistoric sites in Portugal Dolmens in Portugal Loures