0295 – PhD on Alcalar enclosure

It was recently presented a PhD thesis about Alacalar enclosure (Portimão, South Portugal) by Elena Morán entitled “Alcalar, organização do território e processo de formação de um estado prístino V-III milenio a.n.e.)” (Alcalar, territorial organization and formation process of a pristine state V-III millennium BC). It was presented at the Department of Prehistory of the Geography and History Faculty of Seville University.

0195 – Necropolis and ditched enclosures

One of the outstanding monuments of the Alcalar peripheral necropolis.

One of the particularities of large ditched enclosures in south Portugal (and south Spain) is the presence, especially during the chalcolithic, of peripheral necropolis, sometimes organized in clusters, with large funerary monuments, namely tholoi. In Alentejo we have them documented in Perdigões and Porto Torrão, and suspected in Salvada and Monte das Cabeceiras 2. But the most monumental ones are surrounding the ditched enclosure of Alcalar in Algarve. Although they don’t reach the monumentality of some monuments of Andalucia (like the ones of Valencina de la Concepción or Antequera), they are impressive anyway.

The way these monuments were articulated with the ditched enclosures is still not clear. In fact, most of these enclosures are not clear themselves, namely in their plans. At Perdigões, however, we have a little more information about that relation. It seems now that the two tholoi already excavated were initially outside the enclosed area. Latter they were enclosed by the outside ditched, that makes a particular turn to embrace them, and one was reused.

But the specific relations between the dynamics of use of enclosures and the dynamics of use of the surrounding monuments is still badly documented and insufficiently researched. So speculation prevails.   

0061 – Ditched enclosures at Alcalar

Alcalar partially geophysical image of a complex of gates and ditches (after Morán, 2010)

Location: Portimão municipality, Faro district, Algarve, South Portugal)
Chronology: Chalcolithic
Bibliographic references: Móran, 2008; 2010.

Alcalar is a large enclosure surrounded by several necropolis, with megalithic tombs, hypogea and huge tholoi.

The general plan of the enclosures is not yet kwon. Difficult to survey, due to ownership section of the local land, some areas have been submitted to geophysical prospection, but only a few parts of the results are published and available.

One of those parts corresponds to a complex system of gates through several ditches, some of them presenting configurations (in form of “hook”) similar to the ones observed in other enclosures.

At the inside there is a concentration of pits. As usually, they were interpreted as “silos and considered to belong to a storage area. Once again, I advert to the need of not assuming pits as silos without evidence. And suggesting a storage area with just a fragment image of a large site is also a risk. If we look to Perdigões global image, and assume that the thousands of pits were silos, then Perdigões we be just a huge warehouse (and excavations are, naturally, showing a quite different situation).


Concentration of stones inside ditched (after Morán, 2008)

As to the ditches, only two segments of a wavy ditch were excavated, that had 2,5m wide at the top. Inside, concentrations of stones and some parts of animals in anatomical connection, including a complete lamb, other disperse and abundant faunal remains of vertebrates and of shells. These deposits, that in different approaches could be seen as structured depositions, were interpreted as garbage dumping from domestic units.

Supported in a materialistic approach, the site is seen by its researchers as a settlement and a political centre of a pristine form of state, from where an elite rule through coercion a vast hierarchical territory.