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A team of archaeologists from the University of Cádiz (UCA) unearthed an extraordinary 5,000-year-old dolmen at the La Lentejuela necropolis near Teba, Málaga, according to a report by SUR in English. Measuring more than 40 feet long, the massive tomb is constructed of large upright stone blocks and is one of the most monumental and well-preserved megalithic funerary structures ever uncovered in Andalusia. Within the chamber's interior, archaeologists identified several ossuaries containing human remains and a rich assemblage of grave goods, which are providing new insight into the lives and funerary practices of the community that inhabited the region several...

Until now, experts wondered how it was possible that in the middle of the Neolithic period, more than a thousand years before the first pyramids of Egypt were built, these enormous stones could be moved and placed with millimetric precision, orienting them towards the sunrise for astronomical purposes. The 32 stones that make it up weigh about 1,140 tons. Of these, the largest — and the one that covers the back of the chamber — weighs 150 tons. This is the largest slab that was moved during the megalithic phenomenon in the Iberian Peninsula and the second-largest in Europe.

A recent excavation led by archaeologist George Nash in November 2010 at the Trefael Stone in south-west Wales - originally a portal dolmen transformed in later times in a standing stone - has revealed a small assemblage of exotic artefacts including three drilled shale beads, identical to those found at a nearby Early Mesolithic coastal habitation site. These items, each measuring about 4.5 centimetres in diameter, were found within a disturbed cairn or post-cairn deposit... Similar perforated shale beads have also been found at a number of other sites including Manton Warren (Humberside), Newquay (Cardiganshire), Star Carr (Yorkshire) and Staple...