The first two dates are available for Monte da
Contenda. The samples were collected in a ditch section where the road cut the
enclosure. It is one of the outer ditches of the East sequence of ditches
(there is a western one, for the site has at least two sets of ditches
partially overlapped).
Due to the pottery recovered in the section we
suspected it might be from a middle Neolithic, but the results show that the
filling dates from the last three centuries of the 4th millennium
BC, showing that the ditch is from Late Neolithic. Nevertheless this ditch
defines one of the largest enclosures known in Portugal for this period and
confirms Monte da Contenda as a long term complex, since it has an important
Chalcolithic occupation as well.
On the other hand, this ditch cuts others. So the
probability of the origin of the site is earlier than Late Neolithic still
remains.
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