Spanish mayor denies town destroyed protected Stone Age tomb and replaced it with picnic table
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The mayor of a village in northwestern Spain denies his town council destroyed a heritage-protected Stone Age monument to replace it with a picnic table.
A dispute erupted after an environmental protection group reported to the region's Environment and Planning office the destruction of a historically important, 6,000-year-old Neolithic burial site in Ardesende.
In its place, its report says, there is now a concrete table with benches.
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The group says the monument, whose granite structure formed an ancient burial chamber, is listed by the regional government's heritage directorate.
But Mayor Jose Luis Valladares Fernandez says in a statement there is no record "those stones" were catalogued, and that neighbors say they came from the demolition years ago of a building that residents called "the Big House."