Barraques de vinya

Arcis

There is a path that goes from dolmens to vineyard shelters. Josep Pella i Forgas saw it in the year 1883, when he published his "Historia del Ampurdán". In the page 26, vol I, says: If they were dead houses is amazing that today most of the dolmens in Espolla serve in the vineyards as shelters for the living.

The building of vineyard shelters and the new use of the false dome -done with horizontal rows of stone- is not old. Basically belongs tot the XIX and XX centuries. This technic, that is found in prehistoric graves, like Newgrange o Los Millares, rested abandoned many years until the masters of the dry stone brought it again.

During its maximum expansion many dolmens were reused as vineyard shelters. This is the case with Cal Cabot dolmen, in Vallmanya (Solsonès).
Small shelters, like those found in the old way from Cantallops to Requesens (Alt Empordà), make use of the dry stone technic applied to the lateral walls while the ceiling is closed with a great stone slab.
But the best dry stone building masters filled whole districts with fantastic shelters, diverse in style and dimension, as the great piramid-truncated shelter that can be seen in Les Comes, in Súria (Bages).