At
Perdigões enclosure we are now studying the several funerary structures in the
context of the project “Mobility and Interaction in South Portugal RecentPrehistory: the role of aggregation centers”. One of the structures is Pit 40,
where cremated human remains were deposited. There are thousands of small
fragments of burned bones that are being studied in anthropological terms, and among
them fragments of ivory items, also burned, keep appearing.
Several
represent parts of anthropomorphic figurines like the ones from the same
general context already studied and published (Valera & Evangelista, 2014).
Here is the
head of one that lost its face. It presents the hair, the ears and even the
final traces of the facial tattoos.
A head like
the best preserved one, only smaller.
Number of
these figurines is now higher than what it was published and will probably grow
as the study of the bone fragments progress. The figurines, like the human
bodies, are all in small fragments and burned. Would have this analogy been
intentional?
On the
contrary, the exception above, when deposited, was intentionally completed in a
broken leg with a burned white bone (see publication). Body segmentation and
body integrity, parts and wholes. Or windows to the Neolithic mind. Something
to be discussed in a coming workshop in Lisbon.
