Sunday, November 17, 2013

0220 – Juromenha 1 ditched enclosure

Location: Alandroal municipality, Évora district, Alentejo, South Portugal)
Chronology: Late Neolithic
Bibliographic references: (Calado e Roque, 2013)

The ditched enclosure of Juromenha 1 was detected and surveyed in the context of the Alqueva dam mitigation process, in the early XXI century. The survey revealed a plan that suggests a wavy sinuous ditch, with a linear one running parallel. 


Plan of Juromenha 1 (after Calado e Roque, 2013)

The sinuous ditch has a “v” profile, with 2 meters wide and 1,8 meters deep. Four radiocarbon dates put this ditch between 3400-2900 BC.


Ditch section (after Calado e Roque, 2013)


If wavy ditches became more frequent in the 3rd millennium BC in Alentejo, Juromenha 1 clearly shows (as Águas Frias and Ponte da Azambuja also do) that this design emerged in a Neolithic context, where we must search for the reasons that will allow us to explain and interpret these layouts. And not in the chalcolithic walled bastions, as once was supposed.

No comments:

Post a Comment