Martí Mas Cornellá

Studies in Iberian Archaeoastronomy: (8) Orientations of Megalithic and Tholos Tombs of Portugal and Southwest Spain

In this, the penultimate in this series of Studies, we complete our coverage of the peninsula by discussing megalithic tombs of north Portugal and of three provinces of southwest Spain. We also investigate the tholos tombs omitted from previous Studies of western Iberia. In a final Study we shall consider the picture that has emerged from our examination of nearly a thousand Iberian tombs. Tombs of the Minho, the coastal area of northern Portugal, were discussed in the fifth Study, as were the tombs of the central region around Viseu; in the present article we publish amplified lists of the tombs of these regions, and extend our coverage to the tombs of the adjacent areas. For southern Portugal our earlier discussion was confined to megalithic tombs, and so here we include a section on tholos (false-cupola) tombs. Finally, we investigate the west Andalusian provinces of Cadiz, Cordoba and Sevilla, including two great tholos tombs west of the city of Seville that may have had stellar orientations.