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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...