There is currently an effort to declare the dolmen as an Asset of Cultural Interest, the maximum protection a monument can have in Spain. But the Spanish ministries of Culture and Sport and Ecological Transition, along with a group from the University of Extremadura, considered the transportation of the megaliths potentially damaging to the dolmen. They created an online petition to save the monument, which has attracted more than 44,000 signatures. This led a group of residents from Peraleda de la Mata, the town where the monument is located, to urge the Spanish government to move the rocks to a safer place to be preserved and studied. After decades underwater, the porous granite stones have started to erode some have cracked and others have even fallen over. With no surveillance around the dolmen, visitors were left free to touch and potentially damage the megaliths. Its appearance attracted tourists and brought up some concerns. The tips of the tallest stones would sometimes appear as the water levels went down in the summer, but the 2019 drought was the first time the “treasure of Guadalperal” – as the dolmen is commonly referred to – became fully visible in almost 60 years. The megalithic tombs were submerged in the process. Three years later, the area was flooded by the construction of the Valdecañas Reservoir, a project to bring water and electricity to less developed parts of the region. His studies, however, were not published until 1960. The continued investigation of the waters off the island, however, opens a new understanding of how settlements on and near the island may have connected differing groups of people.In the 1920s, German researcher Hugo Obermaier led an excavation of the site and took some items to be studied and exhibited in Berlin. Korčula Island has long been known to house settlements dating back to the Neolithic period. The Miami Herald reports that the Hvar people, one of the original groups of inhabitants of the island, were living in the area during the creation of earthenware, and showed additional ingenuity by crafting a stone road to an artificial island.

Further digging unearthed various artifacts, including blades and a stone axe.

Could Magnetic Fields Find Lost Civilizations?Īs a team-which includes researchers from local museums and diving centers-continues to investigate the area, members are unearthing evidence of more than just the one Neolithic settlement off the popular Korčula Island.Īlong with the road, researchers have started noticing “strange structures” in the area, and have discovered another settlement nearly identical to Soline in Gradina Bay.

Under sea under stone