Talk abstract details

The Iberian Peninsula houses a wide amount of megalithic monuments used as collective sepulchres. These monuments were built during large periods of time -from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, if not even later- and in wide areas all across Europe. In spite of their remarkable presence, they are still far from being satisfactory understood. The reason for their peculiar locations and orientations is still controversial.

We present here a interdisciplinary perspective of this dolmenic phenomenon, including archaeological, geographical, geomorphological and astronomical investigations as the key pillars. We have selected a significant geographical area in the north-central region of the Iberian Peninsula, coincident with the province of Burgos, in which there is a rich catalogue of megalithic sites. We identified nearly 30 dolmens with measurable orientations. In addition, we used a Geographical Information System (GIS) to analyse the relations between the megalithic tombs and the geomorphological properties of the sites. Finally, we include a review of the different artefacts (weaponry and ornaments) found in the sites when available. These diverse viewpoints provide the maximum number of correlations between all possible explanations, finding the most probable one(s) in terms of a principal component analysis.