These are the stones of the Almendres cromlech near Évora, Portugal. Today the site consists of 92 or 93 standing stones (counts vary) but it probably had over a hundred originally. It has been common for many megalithic sites to lose stones either for local buildings, or in bouts of religiously inspired destruction.

These stones date from between 5000 to 4000 BC. This was in the Neolithic period in Iberia, and so this would have been one of the earliest public monuments built in Europe. The precise use of these sites is debated by prehistoric archaeologists. It is likely that there is no one answer. One possible explanation is that these were sites used for seasonal gatherings. For this reason it has been suggested that Almendres was intentionally astronomically aligned. It is possible that the use also changed with time as later Chalcolithic carvings have been found on the stones, which suggest it remained an important place in the landscape for many centuries.

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