It is situated close to the Praia das Maçãs beach, near the town of Colares in Sintra municipality, in the Lisbon District of Portugal.

Surrounded by housing, the location has been designated as a special zone of protection, and construction is forbidden.

Plans by Sintra and the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage to turn the complex into a museum area, first discussed in 2001, have not yet been implemented.

After discovery of the site by an agricultural worker in 1927 there were limited excavations by the National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology but little work on the necropolis was really carried out until archaeologists Vera Leisner, Georges Zbyszewski and Octávio da Veiga Ferreira excavated it, starting in 1969, after having seen items discovered unofficially by a private collector in the 1930s.

Items found at the site have included geometric microliths, arrowheads, polished axes, and cylindrical idols.