«A prehistoric mystery carved in stone»
About 3,750 years ago in Menga (Málaga), a group of men and women built a great megalithic monument that has survived to this day.
This is the story of the Man of Menga, the chief of a Neolithic tribe who had witnessed firsthand the advances of his time.
People no longer depended on hunting or gathering; instead, they kept livestock and grew their own crops.
They no longer had to carry their homes on their backs or move when food ran out, as the elders told in their legends. Their houses were solid and stable, with strong palisades to protect them from wild beasts.
And of course, the beautiful and valuable pottery, as lovely as it was useful.
Did you know…?
The Menga Dolmen is a colossal megalithic monument with a length of 27.5 meters with an inner chamber of 3.5 meters high and 6 meters deep, which implies that the structure supports about 180 tons supported by the presence of intermediate pillars.
The Neolithic was a time of great technological advances. This revolution occurred independently in at least 6 areas of the planet, in Western Asia, Eastern China, New Guinea, Mesoamerica, the Andes Mountains and Eastern North America.
There are scientists who argue that the real technological breakthrough was not writing, but agriculture. This allowed humans to grow in numbers, transform the landscape and was the emergence first of the village and later of the city.
This brought many consequences such as the cultural and political changes necessary to manage villages and populations. Sometimes phenomenal cities were generated, the largest known is Çatalhöyük which is estimated to have had between 8,000 and 10,000 inhabitants.
Currency is another of those small changes that changed the paradigm of human beings. The existence of money allowed a specialization like never before seen in mankind.
Learn with The Man of Menga
Technological Advances
The Neolithic period saw groundbreaking technological developments that forever changed the course of human history.
The Legacy
The men and women of the Neolithic era had to adapt to new social and political realities—challenges that still shape many aspects of our modern world.
Stories by the Fire
The Man of Menga will take us back in time, sharing his world through the lens of ancient superstitions, myths, and fireside tales.
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