Dolmen of Portillo de las Cortes (Aguilar de Anguita)

A six-thousand-year-old tomb

In a mountain col between hills near Aguilar de Anguita stands one of the rare megalithic dolmens of the central Iberian plateau. It is a Neolithic collective burial tomb: a polygonal funerary chamber roughly three metres in diameter, entered via a seven-metre corridor oriented toward the southeast, all enclosed beneath an earthen mound (túmulo).

Cerralbo and the flint tools

It was discovered and excavated in 1912 by the Marquis of Cerralbo, the pioneer archaeologist of the region, who numbered each individual burial to avoid separating deceased individuals from their associated grave goods. These grave goods were abundant: flint knives and projectile points alongside an engraved stone plate idol fragment, yet no pottery or metal objects. Original excavation documentation is preserved in the Cerralbo Museum in Madrid.

Modern excavations

A century later, the Prehistory research team from the University of Alcalá re-examined the assemblage and undertook renewed field excavations at the burial mound. Located near Anguita and the Torre de la Cigüeña.