The Anta do Alto da Toupeira, also called the ''Anta da Toupeira'' or the ''Anta de Salemas'', is a

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 ...

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 ...

, or

megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

ic tomb, situated in the parish 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 ...

. It dates back to the Chalcolithic. The Anta is hidden by a clump of trees about 100 metres to the south of the

Cave of Salemas The Cave of Salemas is located close to the village of Lousa in the municipality of Loures in the Lisbon District of Portugal. Discovered by archaeologists during the 1950s, the cave appears to have been occupied by humans as a temporary refuge d ...

. It is one of several archaeological sites within the same area, including the cave. Although probably identified by the 19th-century Portuguese archaeologist,

Carlos Ribeiro Carlos Ribeiro (21 December 1813, in Lisbon – 13 November 1882, in Lisbon) was a pioneering geologist and archaeologist who inaugurated the concept of fieldwork in Portugal, and was responsible for the discovery and excavation of many Neolithic ...

, it was first studied and drawn on 17 January 1944 by 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 ...

, but no excavations were carried out until November 1959 when Vera Leisner and O. V. Ferreira made some limited excavations and corrected the previous plan. These led them to describe the dolmen as a polygonal chamber necropolis without the usual entrance corridor associated with similar dolmens in the area. They estimated its dimensions as being 5.5 metres by 5 metres, with a maximum height of two metres. Five limestone slabs of the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

epoch survive on the site, one of which is believed to have been the roof of the tomb. Although further research has yet to be carried out, other archaeologists believe that further excavation could result in the discovery of an access corridor. Excavations have yielded a number of findings but archaeologists are confused as to whether these came from the Anta, from the cave, or, indeed, from a second Anta, which appears to be referred to by the Leisners but has not since been identified. Items found have included a cylindrical idol, an axe of

amphibole Amphibole () is a group of inosilicate minerals, forming prism or needlelike crystals, composed of double chain tetrahedra, linked at the vertices and generally containing ions of iron and/or magnesium in their structures. Its IMA symbol is A ...

, a copper chisel, a copper arrowhead, and a pendant. These items are kept at

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

’s Geological Museum (''Museu Geológico'').

References

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