Spanish drought exposes prehistoric site
CACERES: A brutal summer has caused havoc for many in rural Spain, but one unexpected sideeffect of the country’s worst drought in decades has delighted archaeologists — the emergence of a prehistoric stone circle in a dam whose waterline has receded.
Officially known as the Dolmen of Guadalperal but dubbed the Spanish Stonehenge, the circle of dozens of megalithic stones is believed to date back to 5000BC.
It currently sits fully exposed in one corner of the Valdecanas reservoir, in the central province of Caceres, where authorities say the water level has dropped to 28% of capacity.
‘‘It’s a surprise, it’s a rare opportunity to be able to access it,’’ archaeologist Enrique Cedillo, from Madrid’s Complutense University, one of the experts racing to study the circle before it gets submerged again, said.
It was discovered by German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier in 1926, but the area was flooded in 1963 in a rural development project under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.
Since then it has only become fully visible four times.
Dolmens are vertically arranged stones usually supporting a flat boulder. Although there are many scattered across Western Europe, little is known about who erected them.
Climate change has left the Iberian peninsula at its driest in 1200 years.
A violent and unexpected storm battered the French Mediterranean island of Corsica yesterday, killing at least six people including a teenage girl, and meteorologists predicted more bad weather to come.
Hail, heavy rain and winds peaking at 224kmh swept the island early in the day. Two of the victims were killed when trees fell in campsites.
The storm raged as many areas of mainland France — which has been hit by heatwaves and severe drought — received more rain in a few hours than in recent months combined.
Households were left without power after a storm hit the southern Loire and Ain departments, while in Marseille, streets were flooded and streams of water ran down steps in the port city, videos shared on social media showed. — Reuters