Chapter 1 - THE EARLY DAYS

 The earliest tangible evidence of settled human habitation in the Porches area dates back many thousands of years. Archaeologists claim that some of the artefacts found locally are among the oldest ever discovered in Europe.

Stone axe heads and fragments of other tools found at sites scattered across the parish and along the coast nearby have been traced back to various eras of the Stone Age, from the very distant Palaeolithic, through the Mesolithic to the late Neolithic period, which ended about 5,000 ago.

It is clear that the earliest humans here fished and collected shellfish along the coast, and hunted and gathered wild fruits a little inland. The way of life was very basic and it changed only extremely slowly.

Archaeologists have found very old stone implements at Alporchinhos, Areias das Almas, Crastos, Nossa Senhora da Rocha , Praia Nova and Vale de Olival, all within in few kilometres of each other in the parish of Porches. Artefacts from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods have also been found nearby, particularly at Caramujeira just across the parish boundary in the freguesia of Lagoa. The remains were so plentiful that some are believed to be in the hands of private collectors, but most are now stored in the national museum of archaeology (Museu Nacional de Arqueologia Dr Leite de Vasconcelos) in Lisbon.

Starting about 7,000 years ago during the early Neolithic period, a much more advanced form of humanity began migrating from North Africa along the shores of the Mediterranean. Gradually they made their way into the Iberian Peninsula. Eventually they infiltrated from Andalusia into the Algarve. These newcomers were farmers as well as fishermen. Artefacts suggest they used stone implements to clear woodland and till fields. They built dwellings in small tribal communities, domesticated animals and made pottery. Megaliths were characteristic of this period.

Megaliths are blocks of stone used in Neolithic and Chalcolithic (Copper Age) times to construct various types of monuments. Those constructed as tombs, usually with walled chambers capped by slabs of rock, are known as dolmens. Megaliths placed in an upright position are called menhirs or standing stones. Groups of them were sometimes laid out in rows or in circles as most famously at Stonehenge in southern England. Single megaliths standing alone are called monoliths.

Remains of burial chambers have been found in the Porches area, but the most imposing of the late Stone Age relics are monoliths of different sizes, including one more than two metres tall found about a kilometre southeast of Porches village at Areias das Almas. That delightfully translates into ‘Sands of the Souls’.

Other menhirs have been found a little further to the southeast at Caramujeira and at Alfanzina in the freguesia of Carvoeiro. Menhirs have been found at various other localities across the Algarve, most numerously and notably near Vila do Bispo in the west of the region. 

The practice of erecting menhirs seems to have spread widely across Europe in the few thousand years before Christ. Obviously, they had some important community role, but the precise function of menhirs is still a subject of debate and uncertainty. They may have been territorial markers or general gathering sites. More likely they were places of worship or even astronomical observation points.

Some megaliths involved stones so huge and heavy (one in County Wicklow in Ireland weighs 100 tonnes) that those who erected them must have been adept at organising teams of craftsmen and labourers. The precise orientation of some menhirs indicates that these early settlers also had mechanical and mathematical skills and were knowledgeable about the movements of the sun and moon and perhaps other celestial bodies.

The Porches and neighbouring menhirs were found by a team of Portuguese archaeologists led by Eduardo C. Serrão, J. Varela Gomes and J. Pinho Monteiro in 1975. The first two were large and of a kind found in the previous century at Monte Roma in the northeast of the borough of Silves by the renowned 18^th century archaeologist Estácio da Viega.

The 1975 team also found pottery fragments that suggested the menhirs had been created in the last millennia of the Neolithic period, that is to say, between 3,500 and 4,500 years ago, on the cusp of the Chalcolithic or Copper Age, when relatively advanced groups had replaced the primitive hunter/gatherers. The monoliths were decorated with sculpted wavy lines and in some cases more graphic geometric shapes, the meaning or significance of which is unknown.

The Areias das Almas menhir was the least decorated of the large monoliths, but it had the ‘phallic’ shape so typical of many menhirs throughout Europe. The shape has naturally prompted speculation that the stones may have had some symbolic connection with agricultural sowing and harvesting, human fertility and reproduction, or Mother Nature in general. The reason we can only speculate about the people who erected and somehow made use of the menhirs is that so far we know very little of their beliefs, their language or their way of life.

According to Rossel Manteiro Santos, author of two weighty volumes entitled História do Concelho de Lagoa, published in 2001, the number and quality of menhirs found in the Lagoa municipal area makes this “one of the most important centres of menhirs in Europe”  While this is an enthusiastic exaggeration, he goes on to query why the menhirs have not been given more cultural prominence.
 The people of Portugal, the Algarve and even the borough of Lagoa itself have been kept in the dark about “the priceless pieces of prehistoric art” found here, he says. R.M. Santos was at a loss to explain this “silence and / or forgetfulness.” He added than he was convinced “Lagoa could be transformed into a centre for pre-historical tourism,” a study centre, echoing the region’s glorious pre-historic culture.

The largest of the Areias das Almas menhirs and a couple of smaller ones are on view in the front garden of the Convento de São José in Lagoa. Two other Areais das Almas menhirs are on show in the archaeology museum in Silves.

Areias das Almas menhir