0422 - A Continental Beaker (influence) in Perdigões?

From the later contexts in the central area of the enclosures, this beaker with a high profile and an unseen decoration (circular jagged impressions, almost as stamps) presents a stylistic proximity to some continental beakers, namely in the shape.

Similar high profiles are not common in Iberia, but some are known, also with unused decorations in the walled enclosure of Fraga da Pena (Beira Alta, Central Portugal) with a similar chronology (end of the 3rd millennium BC).

Mobility comes to mind.

0392 - And more two about Bell Beakers in enclosures

Download Here and Here.

0390 - New Master Thesis about Perdigões

A new Master thesis was defended at the University of Algarve about the social role of Bell Beakers at Perdigões enclosures. The studied context confirmed a previous idea that beakers were added to a ongoing social trajectory and do not represent a rupture or structural change in that trajectory. And that Beakers have diversified social roles, that, in a context of a wider scale of shared ideas, present regional heterogeneity that cannot be reduced to "monotetic" theoretical formulas.

0344 - Beakers and enclosures

In the next 12 and 13 of May, in a Iberian meeting taking place at the Faculdade de Letras of Lisbon University, I will be talking about beakers and their social roles in two different enclosures: Fraga da Pena in Central/North Portugal and Perdigões in the South. A walled enclosure and a ditched one. 

Some International beakers from Perdigões enclosures

Nailed impressed Beakers from Fraga da Pena walled enclosure.

There are many differences between these two contexts and between their “beaker expressions”. But there are also some similarities: the ways the characteristics of both sites are intrinsically related to the social roles that beakers seem to have been performing there. Two good examples of a contextualism sound bite: that objects and contexts are meaningfully bonded.  Discussing beakers as an entity regardless their contextual specificities is a possible approach at a large scale of analysis, but it would hardly enlighten on the diverse ways they were historically active and regionalized.

0249 – Hemp in Bela Vista 5 enclosure

At the pit grave inside the inner enclosure of Bela Vista 5 there was a Palmela arrow head that was part of the funerary assemblage. That arrow was deposited over a hank of strings. Part of the strings were preserved attached to the arrow’s surface due to its oxidation.

Palmela point with strings attached to it (photo by António Valera)

Analysis show that the strings were made of hemp. This was an interesting finding. Hemp is originally from Asia, but it seems to have spread over Eastern and Central Europe during Neolithic and Chalcolithic. In Iberia there was a context from Late Chalcolithic that provide a textile made of hemp at Abrigo de los Carboneros, but the context have some problems.

Now, at the Bela Vista 5 enclosure hemp appears in a well preserved and excavated context, with a radiocarbon date from the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC.

Bela Vista 5 funerary context (image published in Valera, 2013)

It is the most western context with hemp in European Recent Prehistory, and might be a confirmation of Sherrat’s ideas about the quick spread of hemp associated to Bell Beaker (Bela Vista 5 grave is a late Bell Beaker context, associated to what is traditionally designated in South Portugal by “Horizonte de Ferradeira”).

The publication of this context will be done in a monographic study that will come out shortly, edited by Nia-Era..

References

Valera, A.C. (2013), “Recintos de fossos da Pré-História Recente em Portugal. Investigação, discursos, salvaguarda e divulgação”, Almadan, Segunda Série, 18, p.93-110.

0184 - Bell Beakers and ditches

Bell Beaker from ditch 2 of Porto Torrão.

This is an interesting relation to analyze. At the moment the situation is the following one.

In Portugal the smaller ditched enclosures usually don’t have bell beakers (a difference regarding the walled ones). Only the larger enclosures raveled the presence of this type of pottery. This is the case of Perdigões, Porto Torrão and even Alcalar (with an AOC fragment). In all the rest, beakers are still to be recorded. But even this statement has its exception: at Bela Vista 5 we have a “Ferradeira” grave inside the ditches, and even if this kind of assemblage is not exactly a classic beaker one, it shared enough characteristics to be considered a specific expression of the beaker phenomena.

But apart from this, the present rule is that, in ditched enclosures, decorated Bell Beaker pottery is absent except from the larger ones, where can be very well represented, as it happens in Porto Torrão.

But another interesting situation occurs in Alentejo. As I stressed before (Valera e Rebuge, 2011), we can find beakers in several small open sites or walled enclosures in Alentejo, such as Monte do Tosco, Porto das Carretas, Miguens 3, Outeiro de São Bernardo, Barrada do Grilo, etc. But in all cases the beaker style tends to be exclusively monothematic: we have International style (for instance Porto das Carretas) or geometric combed style (for instance Barrada do Grilo) or incised style (for instance Monte do Tosco).

In the large enclosures, however, we have them all. In Porto Torrão, in Perdigões, but also in the near Spanish ones, like Pijotilla.

What does this exactly means?

Some written opinions about Iberian ditched enclosures support the idea that they were no longer built during the late third millennium. But the data is say otherwise.  Not just Bela Vista 5 was built in the last quarter of that millennia (although it is a “Ferradeira” context), but ditch two of Porto Torrão has beaker pottery in the lower layers and the outside ditch of Perdigões is dated from the third quarter of the millennia, clearly in a beaker phase, and have some beaker pottery in its upper half stratigraphy. So, in beaker times some ditches in large complex enclosures might have been opened and were surly active during the second half of the millennia. It is not like the reoccupations of abandoned chalcolithic sites in ruins, like it happens in the walled enclosures of Monte do Tosco or Porto das Carretas, where the walls were not rebuilt, only stone huts were raised and the area reoccupied is much smaller. On the contrary, something was happening in these large enclosures that show they continued active with the same general social meaning during the Late Chalcolithic. That is exactly what we can see at Perdigões, with the outside ditch being dated from this period but respecting the order of the previous enclosures and the organization of space and landscape, reusing older tombs with similar procedures and occupying (and respecting) the amphitheatre were the site was meant to be.  

It seems that what was happening in large ditched enclosures in the second half of the third millennium was different from what was happening in smaller sites, ditched, walled or open.

But this is based on the data we have at the moment. And, as recent times have been showing, everything can change in a “blink of an eye” in Alentejo.

References: 

Valera, A.C. e Rebuge, J. (2011), "O Campaniforme no Alentejo: contextos e circulação. Um breve balanço.", Arqueologia do norte alentejano. Comunicações das 3as Jornadas, CMF, p.111-121

0108 - Ditches and Bell Beakers

Bell Beakers are not common in Portuguese ditched enclosures. Well, in the small ones. There, they are virtually unknown. Even in those built in bell beaker times.

But at the enclosures that grew bigger, to became large ones, like Perdigões and Porto Torrão, beakers are present and they can be very well represented (as it happens in Porto Torrão).

But that is not it. A pattern emerged in the last years. In small sites, sometimes reoccupations of walled enclosures (but never ditched ones), we tend to have beakers of a mono style (maritime, or incise, or combed geometric). But the large ditched enclosures are the only ones where we have all these styles together.

A paper of mine has recently been published on this issue here.

Notice that in the maps, Perdigões is told to only have maritime and incised beakers. Well, this summer things changed, and combed geometric beakers also are present.

In fact, as Perdigões, Porto Torrão and Bela Vista 5 chronologies show, at beaker times ditches were still being built in west Iberia. Sometimes enlarging previous enclosures (like in Perdigões), sometimes creating original enclosures (like at Bela Vista 5).

But only in the big ones we have the presence of the three main styles. Another sign of the social role of these large enclosures.

0088 - Fraga da Pena and beakers

Fraga da Pena is the site where the largest number of beaker pots was recorded in central-north Portugal. But the most interesting thing is the distribution of beaker shards inside the two walled enclosures: concentration of shards from several half pots in the middle of the outside enclosure; the distribution of beaker shards along the path that leads to the inside enclosure and a deposition of a complete exemplar of the few International style beakers at the end of a stone alignment in the sequence of the gate.

The general appearance of Fraga da Pena, without evidences of inside domestic structures or contexts, already suggested a particular symbolic social role for the site and for the activities that were developed there. But the spatial distribution of the beaker remains inside reinforces that discourse.

Here we have large walls (more that 3 meters wide) that enclose very small areas where no domestic remains were detected. On the contrary, exceptional material is present and dominates the archaeological assemblages. The monumental natural tor and the relations to local landscape complete the image of a special place for special practices. Beaker pottery seems to have played also an important role in those practices.

(Image taken from Valera, 2007)

0058 – Ditch 2 of Porto Torrão and beaker pottery

Beaker pottery in ditch 2 of Porto Torrão after Valera & Filipe, 2004.

As commented in the previous post, beaker pottery is recorded only in the large complexes of ditched enclosures in South Portugal (Perdigões, Porto Torrão and Alcalar)

At Porto Torrão the presence of this pottery is, inside ditch 2, almost from the beginning of sedimentation, but only with International style. The geometric and incise styles only appear in the upper levels of the sedimentation, where both progressively became more representative than the International style, specially the geometric one.

A confirmation of the chronological “décalage” of the different styles. But also a confirmation that, in these large enclosures, some ditches are still functional in the beaker times.

At Perdigões, also in the outside ditch (ditch 1) incised beaker pottery was recorded in the upper half layers of the sedimentation (Lago et al. 1998).

0057 - Beaker and ditched enclosures

Beaker pottery from Porto Torrão (after Valera & Filipe, 2004)

One interesting issue about the Portuguese ditched enclosures is the distribution of Bell Beaker pottery. We have now an inventory of almost thirty ditched enclosures, the great majority located in the Alentejo’s hierterland.

But when we look to the actual distribution of Bell Beaker pottery in ditched enclosures we are striking by one evidence: beaker pottery, characteristic of late Chalcolithic (mainly 2nd half of the 3rd millennium BC), only appears in the ditched enclosures that grow to achieve large areas and extreme structural complexity: Perdigões, Porto Torrão and Alcalar.

That suggests that the smaller enclosures didn´t reach the 2nd half of the millennium or were not permeable to beaker influences. Only the ones that became large complexes did incorporate beaker phenomena. On the other hand, several walled enclosures present beaker pottery (Monte da Tumba; São Brás) or were reoccupied in beaker times (such as Porto das Carretas or Monte do Tosco) reinforcing the differences between these categories of sites.

This is another particularity that needs careful reflexion. Even more if we add the fact (stressed in Valera, 2007 and in the recent publication of the Fronteira meeting proceedings) that there is a tendency for the small sites to present just one specific beaker style (Porto das Carretas, Miguens 3, Monte do Tosco, Barrada do Grilo, etc.) while Porto Torrão or Perdigões (the large enclosures) present influences of the several beaker styles and a significant amount of this kind of materials (especially Porto Torrão).

A circumstance that reinforces the idea that the latter development of larger ditched enclosures represents a transition to a new social dynamic that is progressively alien to the cosmological/ideological frames that generated in the first place the ditched enclosure phenomena in the Neolithic.

The Cathedral’s Era, in fact.