In the Swiss city of Sion, during the construction of an underground parking lot, a cult and burial structure dating back to the third millennium BC was discovered.
A dolmen of the Neolithic era was found by archaeologists conducting excavations at the construction site. It consists of four large slabs, one of which stands upright, and the other three lie side by side in the midst of heaps of rounded stones and earth.
According to the government of the Valais canton (the administrative center of which is Sion), the ancient inhabitants of these places built something like a chamber in which the dead were buried from such plates.
Cantonal archaeologist Caroline Brunetti told local media that each of the found slabs weighs several tons. According to her, we can talk about "a stone sarcophagus of representatives of one clan."
At the same time, it is emphasized that more than a hundred people could rest in such tombs, TASS reports.
The current find in Valais is regarded as exceptional. It is noted that it confirms the important place that the city of Sion occupies among the archaeological sites of prehistoric times in Europe.
The local authorities said that further excavations will help determine whether the bones of those buried here were preserved, or whether they were carried away by the floods of the Zionne River.
In addition, it will be necessary to clarify the dating of this dolmen and compare it with others found in Sion, as well as find out if there are engraved drawings on these slabs.
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This will require cleaning and studying them using a variety of techniques, including scanning.
Previously, several slabs of the same type were found at the same construction site. Experts say: this confirms that we are not talking about one ancient structure, but about several that existed on the site of the parking lot under construction.
In 1961 and 1986 in Petit Chasseur (another area of Sion), archaeologists excavated a whole complex of dolmens from the ground. Then five rectangular chambers of different sizes and several stone steles with embossed drawings were reconstructed.
