Naçarães Valley Menhir

Located in Fontelo, it is a rare example and one of the tallest of its kind on the Iberian Peninsula. Probably erected in the 5th millennium BC, when the first dolmen graves appeared in the region, it was discovered in a rural environment in the Alto Douro Wine Region. Its large dimensions, more than 5 meters high and about a meter wide at the most and 75 centimeters thick, allow it to be seen from very far away. The erection of large natural stones, sometimes with a phallic shape, as in the case of this menhir, is due to the Neolithic communities, when they acquired new techniques and expressed socio-religious practices linked to the domestication of animals and the fertility of the land, perhaps with the aim of stimulating the forces of Nature and marking their relationship with the supernatural world.