Alentejan megalithic landscapes
Barrocal, Monsaraz
Close to the menhir of Barrocal (the biggest laying menhir of Iberia), we found a huge granitic outcrop with the stigmates of having been the source (quarry) of the menhir.
This fact is, of course, a splendid example to think about the relationship between megaliths and natural rock outcrops in the way Chris Scarre has suggested recently.
This outcrop, apart from a very striking anthropomorfic aspect, shows also, on the façade, a vertical natural shelter, going deep inside the rock, and another vertical gap, crossing all the formation and paralel to the façade.
Passages and entrances.
Comments
As noted by Cornelius in his comment, the geological analysis would bring unambiguos argument for the shelter's-standing stone relationship.
Excavation in and around the outcrop (where prehistoric potery, hammerstones and flaked quartzite, have been found)is obviously a must, in the immediate future, in order to contextualize the monument and settle ideas about the relationship of megaliths and the most outstanding natural features of the landscape, such as granitic outcrops, and shelters.
We must note, also, that the menhir of Barrocal belongs to a morphologic category among the menhirs of Central Alentejo, which I have called "lâmina de punhal - dagger blade - (quoting Gabriel Pereira, an archaeologist who, in 1880, published the first menhir known in the South of Portugal.
Actually, that same shape (thich and cilindroid in the base, and becoming thin and sharp, in the top.
Others in Alentejo (mostly around Monsaraz) belong to this category as, for example, Belhoa, Vidigueiras, Monte da Ribeira or Vale de Besteiros.
If they have all been taken, like flakes, from big outcrops, it should eventually be possible to find other examples like Barrocal, observing around those menhirs.
We will keep working on this issue and will provide the main results in real time.
Manuel Calado