In the pre-dawn darkness of the equinox, you enter the single, small door of this ancient burial chamber. You walk down the 21-meter passage until it widens into a chamber in front of you. Suddenly, the first rays of sun strike the doorway, and the whole chamber is illuminated. In those brief few minutes of light, you could be sharing in a ritual of life and death first imagined around 4200 BC.
This enormous structure is the Soto dolmen in Trigueros, Spain, which has been returned to its prehistoric glory after a nine-year restoration. The mound is 60 metres across and 3.5 metres high, making it the largest of more than 200 dolmens, or megalithic tombs, that dot the Huelva province.
The stones that support the Soto dolmen's interior were originally arranged as a Neolithic stone circle similar to Stonehenge, before being repurposed in this structure. When Don Armando de Soto uncovered it in 1922, he found eight bodies inside, posed in crouching positions near the wall and surrounded by stone utensils, pottery and decorative items.
Read more about the awe-inspiring temples and monuments that hint at the origins of human civilisation in our in-depth feature, "Hunter, gatherer… architect? Civilisation's true dawn".
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
Have your say
Only subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in.
Only personal subscribers may leave comments on this article
All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.
If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.
