0178 – Adapting and incorporating

That seems to be a significant difference between walled and ditched enclosures in Portugal.

Tor in the top of a hill used to built Castro de Santiago during Chalcolithic

Naturally, as argued before (for instance here), no building is performed in an insignificant space. Everything built is in dialogue with a local landscape, with its meanings, visibilities, resources, particularities. And all of those previous conditions are, in one way or another, incorporated in the building.

But when we compare walled and ditched enclosures we can observe that the former tend to present a great variety of forms of adaptation and incorporation of previous elements of the landscape, while the ditched enclosures mainly reflect a dialogue with topography, geology and visibility conditions.

Rocks, tors or cliffs, are usually incorporated as part of the structures that enclose. Although in other parts of Europe we can see that also in ditched enclosures (like the French “enceinte à éperon”), so far those solutions were not identified in Portuguese ditched enclosures.

Large wall from rock to rock that defines the inner enclosure at Castro de Santiago.

In terms of the architectonic features, walled enclosures seem to use the available natural conditions in a different way.  Perhaps one of the reasons is that the design, the layout, was less significant than the ones presented by ditched enclosures and answered to different goals.

Plan of the several walled structures that, together with the previous rocks, define Castro de Santiago enclosure.

0177 – Back to Senhora da Alegria

To show an image of a Middle Neolithic ditch that was sampled for pollen analysis. It belongs to a phase of occupation that was dated to the second quarter of the fourth millennium BC.
An intervention of Omniknos company.

0176 – Monte da Contenda sinuous ditched enclosure

Location: Arronches municipality, Portalegre district, South Portugal)
Chronology: Chalcolithic  (and Neolithic ?)

Bibliographic references: Unpublished.

Discovered on Google Earth and confirmed in the context of the project: “Plans of ditched enclosures and Neolithic cosmologies - 2" developed by NIA-ERA. It has at least three concentric sinuous ditches. A first publication will be done this year.

0175 - Looks like a new sinuous one

Another "flower" ditched enclosure in Alentejo. It is spring after all.

0174 – Displaying recent information

In the last few months, in the context of the NIA’s project “Plans of ditched enclosures and Neolithic cosmologies: an approach through landscape, archaeoastronomy and geophysics – 2” (recently renewed) several new ditched enclosures have been identified through Google Earth. I have been noticing some of those discoveries in this blog. And here is another one, from Reguengos de Monsaraz municipality.

It is now time for starting to publish some of the information already collected. So, a poster will be presented at the congress of the Portuguese Association of Archaeologists in November (published in the proceedings) with the title “New ditched enclosures in South Portugal: Google Earth was a tool for a systematic prospection” (by António Valera & Tiago do Pereiro) and a paper will be presented at the same meeting regarding the “Chronology of Recent Prehistory ditched enclosures in Portugal (by António Valera). In the journal Almadan, to be edited next July, there will be a synthesis paper on Portuguese ditched enclosures: “Ditched enclosures of Portuguese Recent Prehistory: research, discourses, preservation and public disclosure” (by António Valera).

0173 – Why are they where they are?

The huge tor of Fraga da Pena used to built a double enclosure in the late third millennium BC. Here seen from the valley.

The approach to Architecture that interests me is based on an anthropological perspective of space, where, in human construction, natural and artificial are cast, as also proposed by ecological approaches. Thinking architectures is thinking their contexts, the global social environment from which they emerge and simultaneously help to fabricate: sets of actions, meanings and materiality through which the human dwelling of time and space occurs. It reflects experiences and perceptions of space; it is relative to technological stages and options; satisfies specific practical needs while expresses and acts over ascetics, ideologies and current social relations; functions as a communication device of explicit and implicit meanings.

It does so through the physical structures but also through the ways space is organized and through associated activities. Corresponds to the construction of active scenarios, conditioned (because they transport tradition and respond to social needs) and conditioning (because they actively interfere in social relations, enabling and conforming them), in the context of human agency in a given time and space.

            Architecture inevitably involves a space organization through the imposing of meanings and by doing so goes further than the simple notions of occupation and construction. Furthermore, it deals in a meaningful way with forms but also with the emptiness, with the positive and with the negative, with the added features but also with the previous categorized “natural” elements of a given space.

In this sense, as a process of building and organizing meaningful spaces, Architecture is not linked, in a restrictive way, to the human material construction. In an Anthropological perspective there is no undifferentiated space in human dwelling. Space is always categorized, classified, and only the ways of doing so are contingent. Before interfere through construction, man architects the space using its elements, the experiences and perceptions that they provide and the associated meanings. When building Man tends to use these previous features with their symbolic meanings and associated experiences, incorporating them as architectonic elements in the space organization.

There is no architecture made over an empty and insignificant neutral space. To understand a “building” implies to understand the previous meaningful place where it was built.  Being that a granitic tor (as Fraga da Pena), a natural amphitheatre (as Perdigões) or the particular place where stands the modern Centro Cultural de Belém (in Lisbon). 

0172 – Linear versus sinuous

This is the north part of the enclosure of Salvada. As is clearly seen, there is a linear outside ditch and a sinuous one by the inside, with a quite regular lobular pattern (like in Xancra, Santa Vitória or Outeiro Alto 2).

How to interpret this design? The sinuous well patterned ditch implies a multiplication (more than the double) of the effort to open the ditch. And what functional purpose can we detect in that design and effort? Certainly, those that once have seen bastions in these semicircular shapes will not suggest that we have a sequence of bastions side by side, not being able to have the function of a bastion. It would be an absurd proposition, as it would be to talk about water canals.

No, this design has to be explain by the ideological dimension of Architecture and sociology of space and to approach that we have to be well supplied of social theory (of sociological, psychological, anthropological and philosophical origin), or we only be able, with the linear minds of the “axiomatic obvious”, to tell linear old stories perpetuated by lineages of members of the “definite discourse”.

0171 – Monte do Tosco walled enclosure

Location: (Mourão municipality, Évora district, Alentejo, South Portugal)

Chronology: Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age
Bibliographic references: Valera, 2000; 2007.

Monte do Tosco walled enclosure is located in the top of a hill, over the Alcarrache river, and was excavated twelve years ago by Era Arqueologia in the context of the mitigation of the impacts of the construction of the Alqueva dam.

 It is a settlement surrounded by a stone wall and an inside stone platform. At least two hut stone structures were identified. These occupation and structures can be ascribed to a plain chalcolithic chronology (first half of the 3rd millennium BC).

Later, the site was reoccupied in Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age, with the construction of a circular stone hut, where several beaker shards and metal tools were collected.

0170 - Poster on Moreiros 2

Poster presented to the IX Iberian Congress of Archaeometry. Lisbon, 2011.

0169 – Ditches and Funerary Practices

Ditch and entrances to hypogea crypts in the north wall.

At Carrascal 2, near Porto Torrão complex of enclosures, a chalcolithic ditch was partially excavated by ERA Arqueologia S.A. and raveled an uncommon situation.  

The ditch, with 2 meters deep and about 4 meters wide, presented a base sectioned in rectangular shapes with a fireplace and in the north side a sequence of hypogea, at least two of them with access through entrances excavated from the side wall of the ditch.

One of the entrances was close by an agglomeration of stones and another by a schist slab. The first third of the filling of the ditch revealed several layers of pavements of circulation, revealing that the ditch functioned as an access atrium to the hypogea.

Over the last pavement, two depositions of human cremation remains were recorded, demonstrating the importance of this specific funerary practice in the 3^rd millennium C, just like is being corroborated in Perdigões enclosure.

This kind of articulation of ditches and funerary crypts is new in Iberian Chalcolithic, but shows how diversified practices and structures related to death can be in this period, namely in the areas of the large complexes of ditched enclosures.

A preliminary paper on this context (still in press) can be obtained here

Bottom of the ditch and sequence of circulation pavements with the detail of a deposition of a shell at the entrance of the central hypogeum.

0168 – About tors used to built enclosures

Fraga da Pena (Fornos de Algodres) walled enclosure.

In an Anthropological perspective there is no undifferentiated space in human dwelling. Space is always categorized, classified, and only the ways of doing so are contingent.

Before interfere through construction, man architects the space using its elements, the experiences and perceptions that they provide and the associated meanings.

Frequently, Architecture is a simple recognition and categorization of previous natural forms that are connected to stories, myths, and transformed in active storage of memories and experiences.

In this context, the tors volume and shape might be associated to sculptures or architectures of ancient times, mythic times, ancestral or divine. We can hardly assume that, in Prehistory, these elements were taken as “natural elements”, explained by tectonic and differential erosion.  

On the contrary. They probably had associated legends that contributed to the entity of the place, making it a meaningful mark in the landscape, through which space was organized and experienced.

The building of this kind of enclosures is not just a matter of building walls using a favorable previous situation. Walls and tor are integrated in a building where the previous meaning of the natural feature, not conceived as so, certainly had a main symbolic role. The choosing of the place and the decision of building an enclosure there hardly can be understood if we do not consider the meaning and symbolic power of these (for us) natural formations. Even if we cannot precise the specificities of that meaning and power, not consider them will result in a poor interpretation and explanation, that will reflect us more than them.  

0167 – Enclosures map updated

The map of enclosures was updated (see the respective page).

Here you have a window over the South Alentejo region, where a significant concentration of ditched enclosures is quite innovative.

0166 - Confirming a new one

Confirmation of ditched enclosures aerial images has several stages. After identification on an image, it is important to go to the place and see if there is prehistoric material on the surface. If so, the finding is reinforced, but some still need deeper confirmation and definition, that can be obtain by geophysical survey or traditional excavation survey. At this stage of our project we are just performing the two first steps (occasionally, as in Monte das Cabeceiras 2, mitigation work allowed confirmation through diggings).

Nevertheless, in the first step (identification by aerial image) there is a way of controlling the quality of the information: if the same signs appear in images from different years, especially if they have several years of interval, than the probability of a correct identification increases significantly, as it happens in this new case, in Portalegre district. We still don't have surface confirmation for this one, but it looks like a double ditched enclosure (like the outside ditches of Perdigões, or Monte das Cabeceiras or Salvada, but not with the internal sinuous ditch of the later two). It will havemore than 200m of maximum extent, which will put it in the middle size group of enclosures. The left image is from 1995 and the right one is from 2006. Eleven years in between clearly reinforce the interpretation.

165 - Are they similar?

(By Filipa Rodrigues, frodrigues@crivarque.net,)

When I first saw the image of the Perdigões geophysics, I was digging the Porto Torrão (Ferreira do Alentejo, Beja) ditched enclosures as part of the mitigation work related to the setup of an irrigation component of the Alqueva reservoir (EDIA, SA). This work brought together a number of archaeological consultancies (Crivarque, Neoépica and Archeoestudos).

A monumental double ditch system, which encloses an estimated area of 70 ha, was identified during this work.

In one of the sectors whose excavation took place under my responsibility (Sector 3 East), the architecture of these monumental structures can be briefly described as:

1. Outer Ditch (Ditch II) → Width - 12m; Depth – 6m; Profile – tending to a V-shape;
2. Inner Ditch (Ditch I) → Width – 8,5m; Depth – 5,50m; Profile – tending to a U-shape.

The Sector 3 East excavation revealed parallel and concentric ditches ca. 30m apart. Dimensions aside, these features are similar to most known ditched enclosures; however the Porto Torrão double ditch system is distinct in one important aspect: the existence, every 25 m, of small tunnels interconnecting both ditches.

Therefore, I interpret these ditches as a single feature, not as two separate and independent constructions, one meant to fulfill a common purpose. Subsequently, but within the time range of the Copper Age, these features’ original function became obsolete and they were filled-up. Their original purpose and the reasons behind their deactivation in Copper Age times remain open questions

In the area of the site under my responsibility it was not possible fully to excavate these tunnels; in the area under the responsibility of the Neoépica consultancy (whom I thank, and Raquel Santos especially so, for the information), the connection of the ditches by tunnels has been confirmed.

In aerial photography, the layout of the Porto Torrão features reminds the images returned by the Perdigões geophysics:

So, the question that I have for now is: are they similar?

You can also see an excavation video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql3JinQEGeg

0164 – Destruction of ditched enclosures

This is a major problem for ditched enclosures in Alentejo region. In the last few years agricultural fields are being reconverted and olive trees and vineyards are being planted in extensive areas. This is done without any previous Archaeological survey and the result is that a lot of archaeological sites are affected, destroyed or become inaccessible to research (for instance, for geophysical survey).

This is happening with some ditched enclosures, and our “google prospection” is documenting it, for some sites identified in images from 2003 or 2006 are now invisible or almost.

It was this that happened to Perdigões enclosure 16 years ago. There, though, it was possible to interrupt the process after the plowing and assume the area as an archaeological reserve. But recently, several others do not have the same fortune.

 Examples of identifiable enclosures in recent aerial images (left) and their actual situation (right).

0163 – And a nice new wavy one

Just discovered two days ago in Campo Maior municipality in our “satellite prospection”. In the Portuguese middle Guadiana basin patterned sinuous ditches seem to be a hit.

0162 – And two more

Recently, in Beja municipality, two new ditched enclosures were detected on Google Earth by Tiago, in the context of our project. One was already confirmed in the ground. They dist just 1,4 km from each other and just 6,5 km from Bela Vista 5. It is amazing how they keep appearing in so short distances reminding situations known in Central Europe.  

Here are the aerial photos from 1995.

0161 – Fraga with snow

Today it will snow in Beira Alta above 400m of altitude. Fraga da Pena, located at 750m, will be like this.

4000 years ago it would have been the same. But inside no hut evidences were recorded; nothing that suggested that people were living there. On the contrary, the materials present (and the ones that were missing) suggested a ceremonial place. The ambiance of the granitic tor, the painting on it, the open passage through it and the natural amphitheatre in the slope making the enclosure look like a stage, all reinforce this image. And so does the snow.

0160 – Bastions, towers, huts: perceptions of walled enclosures structures

It is a fact that a significant number of walled and ditched enclosures have plans that tend to circularity and that angles are rare. Well, if this statement is a rule for ditched enclosures, for walled ones it has some exceptions.

In fact, there are some walled enclosures that present designs made by strait sections of walls that connect forming open angles, where we usually find circular constructions that in Portuguese archaeological literature are immediately interpreted as bastions or towers. 

One of the classic sites is Pedra do Ouro (Lisbon district) walled enclosure. But more recently, walled enclosures with a polygonal tendency have been recorded in Alentejo, namely Porto das Carretas in Mourão municipality and São Pedro in Redondo Municipality, following designs also suggested in some sites of south Spain, like Cerro de los Vientos de La Zarcita or Campos.

 Plans of São Pedro (Mataloto, 2010) and Porto das Carretas (Silva e Soares, 2002). Click to enlarge.

This rupture with circularity is also seen in some French walled enclosures, like Boussargues. But here some new perspectives were developed that I think it would be interesting for Iberian archaeologist to consider and some Spanish colleagues have done just so (inclusively for the well known forts of Los Millares). At Boussargues, the round structures at the angles of the walls were taken as previous constructions. It was later, in a second phase of construction, that they were united by sections of strait walls (Colomer, et al. 1990), like dots united by lines in a paper. In this case, the strait design of the walls seems to be induced by the previous circular structures (that are not bastions or towers, but households), generating a more polygonal shape. This is a quite different process from building an enclosure that was planned ahead and it raises a lot of questions about the way some archaeological structures have been interpreted in Iberia.  

Boussargues (Calomer, et al, 1990 adapted)

If we look to the published plans of Porto das Carretas and São Pedro we can see that in several situations the areas of the angles and the connections to the so called bastions or towers are quite destroyed. Sometimes stratigraphic relations between the structures cannot be observed and interpretation is relying on presumptions.

Well, it seems that examples like Boussargues were not taken in consideration in the interpretation of similar Portuguese enclosures. But I think it would be useful to approach the records of this sites (Porto das Carretas and São Pedro are no longer physically available for research, as we all know, so we only rely on the records of the excavations) with this perspective and question them free from some prejudices.

Bibliographic References:

Colomer, A. , Coularou, J. e Gutherz, X. (1990), “Boussargues (Argelliers, Hérault). Un habitat ceituré chalcolitique : les fouilles du secteur oust.”, Documents d’Archéologie Française, 24, Paris.

Mataloto, Rui (2010), “O 3º/4º milénio a.C. no povoado de São Pedro (Redondo, Alentejo Central): fortificação e povoamento na planície centro alentejana“, (GONÇALVES, V. e SOUSA, A.C., Eds), Transformação e mudança no centro e sul de Portugal: o 4º e o 3º milénios a.n.e., Cascais, CMC, p.263-295.

Silva, C.T. e Soares, J. (2002), "Porto das Carretas. Um povoado fortificado do vale do Guadiana", Almadan, 2ª Série, 11, p.176-180.

0159 – Monte Novo dos Albardeiros walled enclosure

Location: Reguengos de Monsaraz municipality, Évora district, Alentejo, South Portugal)

Chronology: Late Neolithic (?), Chalcolithic, Bronze Age

Bibliographic References: Gonçalves, 1988/89; Gonçalves  & Alfarroba, 2010

Image of the wall and associated tower (after Gonçalves & Alfarroba, 2010)

Located in a small hill over the Álamo stream, Monte Novo dos Albardeiros site had a first occupation probably dating from Late Neolithic. Then, in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC a walled enclosure was built. In the excavations a thick wall and a tower were detected, together with some votive depositions and metallurgical activities.

Plan of the wall and associated tower (after Gonçalves & Alfarroba, 2010)

After the ruins of the wall another construction was erected already in the 2nd half of the millennia, interpreted as a possible tholoi tomb. When this monument was in ruin, a Bronze Age funerary deposition was recorded.

The site is near Perdigões complex of enclosures and participates of the same general landscape and territorial occupation. Inclusively, the same long chronology suggested for this site is now attested at Perdigões. The relation between this two kind of sites, in this local area or at a regional scale, is one of the interesting problems of the Prehistory of the 3rd millennium South Portugal.To discuss this issue I was invited by the students of Évora University for a talk next month.

0158 – Creating a legend to communicate heritage

Here is the publication of a legend, a recent one, about an archaeological site: the walled enclosure of Fraga da Pena. The idea was explained here, in a previous post 1,5 years ago. 

0157 - Sinuous ditches

A paper of mine, analyzing and debating the designs of sinuous ditches in Portugal, is available here:

http://www.academia.edu/548745/Fossos_sinuosos_na_Pre-Historia_Recente_do_Sul_de_Portugal_ensaio_de_analise_critica

Abstract

            The number of known ditched enclosures in South Portugal has been increasing in the last years, being almost thirty now. Between them, several present a peculiar design that has been designated by “sinuous ditches”. This peculiar configuration didn’t raise the necessary attention to its interpretation, as a result of a axiomatic functional attribution that doesn’t question the ideological foundations of architecture.

            In this paper, I will present the inventory of the sites with this design, which seems to concentrate in the middle Guadiana Basin. A contextual characterization will be done to support a critical analysis of the traditional interpretation and provide the argumentation for an alternative discourse, more related to a “cosmological architecture”.     

0156 – “Decorated” Gate at Castro de Santiago

At Castro de Santiago (Valera, 1997, 2007) two walled enclosures were built using pre existent granitic rocks on a hill top.

Each enclosure had a gate, built with lateral vertical granitic slabs and a horizontal threshold in the middle of the entrance. In the gate of the inner enclosure, the threshold slab presents a sequence of nine carved cup marks. Five of them form a circle, three make an curve over the circle and one is isolated.

Quite frequent in the south, these engraving are less common in the region of central Portugal hinterland. They cover a wide chronology and there are several interpretative proposals for their meaning. They are highly speculative, but in general they assume a symbolic role for these cup marks. In the present case, their location in a gate doorstep is particularly relevant, since gates always tend to have a symbolic status related to its role of connecting different significant spaces, of transition between the inside and the outside and their specific meanings. Would these marks helped to create a change of state in who passed through that gate? Would they protect the gate? Would they give some sort of warning? Would they represent something real (for instance a constellation of stars) or just an idea or superstition? And why were they carved in the inner gate and not in the outside one (that is quite similar and also have a doorstep slab)? And why in this specific enclosure? 

0155 – Three more confirmed

Two possible ditched enclosures detected earlier in Google Earth were confirmed in the field, together with a recent find from last week (also on satellite image). The first two are from Serpa municipality and the third from Beja, just 3,3 kilometers away from Monte das Cabeceiras 2 (which is 3,5 from Salvada).

The new site in Beja municipality: grid stones and Chalcolithic pottery were visible at the surface.

These new enclosures present a similar topographic location, on the top of smooth hills with a great visibility over the landscape, almost in all directions. But at least two of them do not have its centre in the highest point of the hill, but slightly in the beginning of one of the slopes.

Topographical location of the new site.

0154 – Confirming the ditches at Mte. das Cabeceiras 2

We have identified several tens of new ditched enclosures through Google Earth in the last few months. Last Monday more three were recorded in Beja area. Of course, now conformation on the ground is needed. But one of the major discoveries of a couple of weeks ago, Monte das Cabeceiras 2, is crossed by a water supply system and preliminary survey is being done. There, it was possible to confirm the presence of the ditches, showing that the areal image interpretation was correct, even in an area where the ditches lines here faint. They were where they supposed to be. These are important results to “develop the “eye” for this kind of prospection.    

0153 - Fareleira 3 ditched enclosure

By Margarida Figueiredo

Location: Vidigueira municipality, Beja district, Alentejo, South Portugal)

(X=39131.115; Y=128230.640; Z=151.098)
Chronology: Late Neolithic
Bibliographic references: still unpublished

In the context of rescue archaeology related to the Edia´s water supply infrastructures it was discovered and surveyed the ditched enclosure of Fareleira 3, implanted in the Southeast edge of a broad plane surrounded by water, good soils and privileged view.

The archaeological context included a wide range of negative structures, excavated in the soft local bed rock consistent with an habitation context: with a great variety of pits and one shack basis, all with circular shapes, and what it appears to be a delimitation ditch, or more correctly 4 segments/modules of the same ditch in clear association with different kinds of post holes.

256- general view of the ditches

Spread over a visible area of around 0,5ha these structures were divided into two different areas and acted like two different and well assumed spaces: the first one delimited by the ditch, with a major concentration of pits and post holes. The second one, with a much more dispersed pattern, and exclusively formed by pits, concentrated in the opposite limit of the site. The very distinctive process of the different fillings in these structures amongst the two groups was itself very meaningful. It showed a much more complex filling, with constant re-cuttings of the preceding layers and with more ample sequence of deposits, joined with a generous quantity of material: ceramic, lithic, faunal remains and large depositions of stones; over the singled filing (very similar to the geologic cut-off during the opening of the pits), with none or very few elements allowing for reasonable dating.  

The profusion of pottery, especially in the interior of those ditches, is essential when framing this enclosure in the last quarter of the IV millennium, with a consistency inherent to all layers. This means that in spite of the different phases of occupation and final abandon, the time line was very short, with no serious alterations in what we may call the way of living.

Although no general plan is available we have almost 40 meter of a circular alignment of 4 short ditches merged with 4 post-holes. These ditches are different in depth, filling and width. The shorter ones (South limit) – [2513], [2402] e [2404] – presuppose a “boomerang shape plan” with similar sizes (5.50m long per 1.80m wide). While the isolated structure on the North limit – [2304] – longer and thinner than the rest (12.5m long per 1m wide) is more sinuously waved. All of them are “U” shaped structures with straight walls and depths that go from 0.46 to 1.30 meters.

218- Surveys 21, 23, 24 & 25

It looks like being the work of two different contractors: the first three interrelated segments on the south end represent a one stage building process with the excavation of the two contiguous segments overlapped by a third one working has a clinch between them, assisted by a multiple post-hole structure. The isolated ditch has nothing to do with this complex building system, but maybe that is because it corresponds to an in-between gate module.

 210- [2508] [2509] [2513]

192- [2402] [2404] [2406]

There were diagnosed two empty spaces in this line of ditches, which can be looked at from two perspectives: either they represent entrances or they indicate an unfinished work. In spite of our belief in a building staged process, it is more likely that those ditches represent deliberate gates. Both are located in the eastern side of the enclosure, a common feature to most of the enclosures spread all over the Alentejo. This fact has been studied and interpreted as a cosmological constraint, the symbolic facing to the winter solstice (Valera e Beckett, 2011).

262 - View of the works.

All these descriptions look familiar, but what do they actually tell us when it comes to their functionality and meanings? We hope that with a thorough study of the materials and a broader view of the site we can get some more answers and associate them with some other similar negative structures.

Margarida Figueiredo

0152 – A new one similar to Xancra?

It certainly looks so. This is the latest new ditched enclosure and was once more detected in Google Earth (by Tiago), in the context of our project of systematic quest for these kind of sites in Alentejo region.

Like Xancra, this new site seems to have well patterned sinuous ditches, probably three concentric ones. It was named Monte da Contenda and is just 4,5 km from Santa Vitória, another sinuous patterned ditched enclosure quite similar to Xancra. The narrow spatial proximity of some ditched enclosures starts to be an important issue for interpretation. Obtaining absolute chronologies is becoming more and more urgent to determine where these sites lived at the same time or not. Either situation is of most interest for comprehending the ditched enclosures phenomena.    

0151 – Excavations at Monte das Cabeceiras 2

They started last Wednesday. The site is going to be crossed by a water supply infrastructure and a survey of the affected area is being undertaken (by Omniknos Company). After some previous diagnosis surveys, the top ploughed soil is being removed and the surface of the preserved contexts is being cleaned. Lots of negative structure started to appear, namely what seems to be a sinuous ditch. But based um the aerial image, several more are expected to appear next week.

0150 – The oldest ditch in Portugal

Was recorded in Senhora da Alegria and belongs to the Early Neolithic occupation dated from the third quarter of the 6th millennium BC, with one of the highest percentages of “cardial” decorated pottery known in western Iberia.

 A preliminary presentation of the context will be done next February, 16 (see here).

0149 – Surprisingly late

Outeiro Alto 2 ditched enclosure (Brinches, Serpa, Beja). Photo by Paulo Marques; excavations by Era Arqueologia. S.A.

That is what we might say about Outeiro Alto 2 ditched enclosure recently dated in the context of a project financed by FCT (Portuguese Science and Technological Foundation).

This sinuous small enclosure, with patterned lobules, is extremely similar to Santa Vitória one and, in its general regularity, to Xancra, inclusively in the astronomic orientation of the gate. Xancra is not yet excavated, and we just have some surface materials indicating a general Chalcolithic chronology, but Santa Vitória was largely excavated, though never conveniently published. We still not have access to the contextual data of Santa Vitória (excavated in the eighties of last century). Though, a study of the pottery in a master theses suggests an early chronology in the third millennium BC (there is a lot of faunal remains that could be dated, but it seems we have to wait for the next millennium to have access to it – particularities of Portuguese archaeology).

When other sites started to appear showing the same general layout, the tendency was to consider them from the first half of the third millennium, like Santa Vitória. Well, a sample from the bottom of Outeiro Alto 2 ditch was dated from the third quarter of the third millennium, demonstrating that this particular layout of lobules was being done in later times in the Chalcolithic; bell beaker times (although no bell beaker were recorded at Outeiro Alto 2)

This is another dimension of the “empirical revolution“ that is going on in Alentejo. Things are much more complex, much more “mixed up”, than previously suspected. Clear “frontiers” are falling apart everywhere and diversity is emerging as the “main stream” image of the historic dynamics of South Portugal Recent Prehistory.

The context of Outeiro Alto 2 ditched enclosure and its absolute chronology will be published in the next volume of the “Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património” journal, expected for next April.