The Almendres megalithic enclosure is the largest megalithic monument in the Iberian Peninsula and one of the oldest of Humanity’s monuments. It was, as it seems, built around 7ooo years ago, at the dawn of the Neolithic, the time when the first communities of shepherds and farmers were emerging in Europe.

The Almendres site, whose original layout was, very probably, a horseshoe shape, open towards the east, seems to have been added to and altered: the monument’s current shape, which is relatively complex, is partially the result of these old interventions and, also to more or less recent amputations and disturbances.

The monuments currently compromises around a hundred monoliths, some of which are richly decorated. The choice of the places where the monuments were positioned surely took into account the physical structure of the landscape, especially in the river network as well as the most notable astronomical phenomena, relating to the annual movement of the Sun, Moon, on the horizon.