0281 – Iberian causewayed enclosures

Middle Douro valley enclosures (taken from Delibes et al. 2014).

A relatively recent publication presents a synthesis about ditched enclosures in the middle Douro valley, in central-north Iberia. Also there the phenomena of enclosures revealed itself with great intensity in the last years.

But one of the most interesting aspects of this new set of ditched enclosures is that they are almost all causewayed enclosures, quite similar to the ones known in the rest of Europe.

This type of enclosures was not yet discovered in Portugal. Maybe in the future some may be detected in Beira Alta or Trás-os-Montes, in the areas that mark the western limits of the north Meseta. But, so far, the Portuguese enclosures are quite different and in the Guadiana basin they tend to privilege the sinuous patterns, side by side with linear layouts.

This shows us how the same general phenomena may be expressed in different ways in regions that are not that far away.  

References

G. Delibes de Castro, M. Garcia Garcia, J.Olmo Martín, J. Santiago Pardo (2014), Recintos de fosos calcolíticos del vale médio del Duero. Universidad de Valladolid.

0210 – Causewayed enclosures in Portugal?

Causewayed enclosures are a typical site from British islands prehistory. However, a recent publication shows the presence of what we should call causewayed enclosures in Iberia, in Northern Meseta (García García, 2013).

Image taken from García García, 2013.

Well, at Herdade do Estácio (Beja), a site being excavated by Omniknos Company (direction of Tiago do Pereiro) a sequence of elongated pits were recorded and they clearly remind the same general plan of a causewayed feature. The materials collected inside the pits indicate a Late Neolithic chronology. The layout and the chronology reminds the enclosure of Fareleira 3, although the ditches are bigger there.

Late Neolithic causewayed feature (?) at Herdade do Estácio. 

This empirical data is scarce at the moment, but starts to suggest that, once again, we might have in Iberia elements that clearly integrate the peninsula in phenomena of European scale.

References:

García García, M. (2013), “Las Pozas (Casaseca de las Chanas, Zamora): dos nuevos recintos de fosos calcolíticos en el Valle del Duero”, Trabajos de Prehistoria, 70:1, p.175-184.