Cave Rock Art and Megalithism – Évora Tour
On this activity we depart from Évora and drive 30 minutes (25 km – 15 miles) to the Escoural Cave. We have a 45 minute visit to the Cave. Then we can visit the Museum 3 km away in the village of Escoural. On the way back to Évora we´ll visit “Pinheiro do Campo” Dolmen and a “Portela de Mogos” Cromlech. Both of this monuments are 6000 year old, from the Megalithic Culture in the Neolithic.
The first settlement of Escoural Cave is from 50000 years ago, from the Middle Paleolithic. Nomadic groups of Neanderthal hunter-gatherers used the site as a shelter. Carved stone tools and the remains of animals were found in Escoural. In the Upper Paleolithic (35000-10000 years ago) the cave was used as a sanctuary by modern men. In the walls of the cave we can find carvings and paintings of equine and bovine animals. This is probably related to magical beliefs and to the primitive religion of Animism. In the Neolithic (7000-5000 years ago) the cave was transformed into a cemetery. Bodies were lain in the cave, together with various offerings: ceramic vases, axes in polished stone, flint blades…..The farmers from the Neolithic respected the art form the Paleolithic. They used the exterior rocky surfaces on the hill top, at the entrance of the cave, to represent schematic motives and stylised animal representations. A new artistic cycle and new attitude toward the world but respecting the Sanctuary. In the Copper Age (4000 years ago), with the entrance to the cave closed, a settlement was built on top of Escoural Cave, not far we also have a burial place called Tholos. Escoural was rediscovered in 1963 during work in a marble quarry and declared a National Monument.
We have more than 2000 monuments in the Alentejo from the Culture of megalithis. The largest concentration of monuments from this period in the world. In the Middle East, 12000 years ago, Man began to domesticate land and animals. This led to sedentarization and the development of complex societies. Metals were not known and the tools were made of hard stone. We know this period by the name of the Neolithic, the period of the New Stone. The Neolithic arrived on the coast of Iberia 7000 ago.The rivers became roads taking the Neolithic to the interior. The Alentejo has been a humanized landscape since then. In the Neolithic the Culture of the big stones, or Megalithism, was born. Some of the Monuments from Megalithis are Burial Mounds called Dolmens, Standing Stones called Menhirs and groups of Menhirs called Cromlechs. In the Alentejo this Megalithic Culture started in the Middle Neolithic, 6500 years ago. and lasted to the Bronze Age, 4000 years ago.
