0403 - The twilight of Perdigões

In next September 24 and 25 I will be presenting a synthesis of the available data on Perdigões later phases of use. It will be at a workshop promoted in Lisbon by a team from the Kiel university that is interested in the problems related to climate change occurred by the end of the 3^rd millennium BC and their repercussions in the social trajectories of the time. The confluence of interests (the next project that is being designed for Perdigões dedicates particular attention to the social changes in the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age) has been leading to a collaboration between this university and ERA Arqueologia regarding ditched enclosures (at the moment, we are collaborating in completing the geophysics of Monte da Contenda).

0402 - Santa Vitória: the usual

The work in Santa Vitória has been mainly cleaning. Namely the already excavated ditches, from which there is no new information to collect. 

But in ditch 2 we started to define a new section and the top of preserved fillings, and the expected is there. Like in many other ditches of many other enclosures, Santa Vitória is also presenting recutings filled with layers of stones.

0401 - SANVIT 2018_2021

Visit to Santa Vitória in the context of the international meeting organized by ERA in 2012 (Gulbenkian, Lisbon) on "Ditched enclosures and funerary practices", later published in the British International Reports.

Next Monday the project "Santa Vitória: temporalities, Architectures and Social Practices in a ditched enclosure - SANVIT", developed by Era Arqueologia in collaboration with Campo Maior municipality and DRC of Alentejo, will start, with the first campaign of field work, co-directed by me and Ana Catarina Basílio.

The project is linked to the Perdigões enclosure's one, not just because of the institutions and people involved, but mostly by the scientific inquiry, as can be deduced from the project abstract:

" The project is focused on the ditched enclosure of Santa Vitória (classified as site of public interest, and property of the State) located in the municipality of Campo Maior, Portalegre district. It aims to apply a scientific inquiry that allows the comparing of the social dynamics and the temporalities of a small ditched enclosure with the ones that have been identified in a large complex of enclosures such as Perdigões.
It is intended to produce information that responds to the present problems involving ditched enclosures and that, simultaneously, allow the construction of a comparative frame for different/similar dynamics observed in Perdigões. We want to comprehend how two apparently different biographies can be integrated in a frame of shared principles, but expressed in distinct ways and durability. Therefore, the project will be developed in strict connection with the Perdigões Global Research Project.

The specific main goals are:

- Obtain the global plan of the site through geophysics;

- Built a chronological frame for the site and establish its temporalities;

- Characterize the social practices that took place at the enclosures and its periphery and the processes of filling of negative structures;

- Determinate the levels of interaction, in terms of exogenous materials and mobility of animals and (if possible) humans.

            - Characterize the material culture accessing style and technology;

            - Contextualize the site in the local settlement network;

            - Evaluate the conservation situation of the structures previously excavated and exposed for several decades and define a plan of intervention, aiming the preservation of the site;

            - Develop a program of public display and heritage education associated to the site.

For starting, though, we have a hard task ahead, for the site is covered with bushes. 

.

0400 - The geophysics of a new one

Here is a new image of geophysics for a Portuguese Prehistoric Enclosure, just finished few days ago. A twin of Xancra, just a bit more complex.

0399 - Santa Vitória. The new project of ERA at a ditched enclosure

It has just been approved a new research project, promoted by the ERA team (in a partnership with the DRC-Alentejo and Municipality of Campo Maior), to approach the ditched enclosure of Santa Vitória, at Campo Maior, Alentejo. This project aims to compare the social dynamics of a smaller enclosure with the ones of a large and complex one as Perdigões. So, the two projects will be in sound articulation.

0398 - A new paper in the same project

0397 - Mobility at Perdigões

Tomorrow at the Archaeological National Museum at 11.20. The last results (while waiting for the next ones) of the project on mobility of humans and animals at Perdigões enclosures..

0396 - Perdigões: back in Easter.

This year, the campaign at Perdigões enclosures will start earlier, just after Easter. From April 2, and during six weeks, you may follow the excavations here. Tomb 4 will be excavated.

0395 - Stimulating Geophysics in Portuguese Archaeology

Era Arqueologia is going to support research projects through geophysics.

0394 - A interesting new one...

... near Évora.

0393 - Perdigões - 2º phase 2018 campaign

Application form

0392 - And more two about Bell Beakers in enclosures

Download Here and Here.

0391 - New paper about Perdigões.

A new paper about Perdigões has just been published. It addresses Tomb 2, a tholoi type monument, with construction dated from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, but with a later use in the second half of that same millennium, in beaker times, with some beaker items (like gold foils and ivory button), but with no beakers. Something that is common in Perdigões, as the next paper, coming out tomorrow, discusses.

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.

0389 - More ivory while selecting teeth for mobility analysis

Some ivory items, with focus on the decorated plaque.

In the context of the project to characterize human mobility at Perdigões enclosure we are enlarging the sample of Tomb 2. We have been reviewing the bones and selecting teeth, namely from some stratigraphic units not yet studied. Bones were still packed from the field, and mixed with them some more votive materials: arrow heads, beads and ivory items.

Some of the ivory items are decorated fragments of plaques, with geometric motives, that are similar to others present in other Southern Iberian large ditched enclosures, like Valencina de la Concepción. With the conclusion of the study of Tombs 1 and 2, and the ongoing study of the cremated remains of Pit 40, the paper about the ivory items in Perdigões, published in World Archaeology (Valera et al, 2015), needs a significant updating.

Teeth to be selected for analysis

Other votive materials

And an item from Valencina similar to the decorated fragment from Tomb 2 of Perdigões (taken from Garcia Sanjuán et al, 2013)

Bibliographic References:

García Sanjuán, L., M. Luciáñez Triviño, Th. X. Schuhmacher, D. Wheatley, and A. Banerjee 2013. “Ivory craftsmanship, trade and social significance in the southern Iberian Copper Age: the evidence from the PP4-Montelirio sector of Valencina de la Concepción (Seville, Spain).” European Journal of Archaeology 16,4: 610-635.

Valera, A.C., Schuhmacher, T.X., Banerjee, A. (2015), “Ivory in the Chalcolithic enclosure of Perdigões (South Portugal): the social role of an exotic raw material”, World Archaeology, 47:3, 390-413.

0388 - Preparing for excavating Tomb 4 at Perdigões

Click on the image to enlarge

To prepare the excavation of Tomb 4 at Perdigões Era team did some more geophysics to improve the available image. Here you may compare the previous image (on the left) of the monument with the new one (on the right, over the previous one). The difference is remarkable and a lot of useful information about the architecture is provided.

We will starting to adopt this procedure to other specific areas of the enclosures to get more detailed information.

0387 - Perdigões Tomb 4

Yesterday the Era team went back to Perdigões to do some more geophysics. This year, another tomb will be excavated in the context of the project on human mobility. This tomb was already identified in the published magnetogram, but now we manage to improve the quality by using another measuring grid.

It is clearer now that it looks like another monument with a circular chamber, small passage, like Tomb 1, also oriented to 90º. It also seems to have some sort of mound still preserved.

This image will be of great help for planning the excavations.

0386 - A new image...

... of Monte de Corte Ribas ditched enclosures. In this image, we can see the three circle enclosures, and one or two smaller circles in the north part. One seems to overlap the outside ditch of the three ring system.

0385 - New paper on Portuguese Neolithic enclosures

Available here

0384 - A sad Christmas present in winter solstice

Today was the winter solstice. And important day in many prehistoric enclosures, namely in the ones that had their gates aligned with the sunrise in this day.

Not a fortune day, though, to visit one of the larger and most complex of the Portuguese Prehistoric Enclosures: Monte da Contenda.

Today I discovered that this is another large and complex ditched enclosure (with the higher number of ditches known in Portugal) that was affected by the ongoing agricultural transformations in Alentejo region. It was known, the geophysics published (Valera et al. 2014), but the institutions responsible for the Portuguese heritage just can’t handle this problem.

The important concentration of ditched enclosures in Alentejo region is of recent discovery (last two decades). It is one of the most important in Iberia. But at this rhythm, they soon will be all (or almost all) deeply affected, while the minister of culture does nothing (if in fact there is one or, if so, if he knows Archaeological heritage is of his political responsibility), and the minister of agriculture says it is nothing with him.

 Here is the site when geophysics was done in 2013.

Here the site today. A deeply ploughed field of almond trees with a mechanical water system embedded in the soil.

Bibliographic Reference

Valera, A.C., Becker, H., Costa, C. (2014), Os recintos de fossos Pré-Históricos de Monte da Contenda (Arronches) e Montoito (Redondo), Estudos Arqueologicos de Oeiras, 21: 195-216.

PS – The Montoito enclosure, also published in this paper was also deeply ploughed recently, and again no action.

0383 - Interaction a Perdigões (2)

And in the sequence of the previous post, here is the recently published paper about the exogenous materials present at Perdigões ditched enclosures.
Available for download here

0382 - Perdigões and interaction

The exogenous large blades from Perdigões tomb 3 are finally organized, so they may be easily seen.
The boxes are 40cm wide. The largest blade is around 32cm

0381 - Project about mobility in Perdigões enclosure

Collecting plants at the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic site of Moinho de Valadares, in Mourão municipality. They will be used for Sr 87/86 isotopic analysis in the context of the research project on human and animal mobility at Perdigões ditched enclosure.

The project, financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), reached the middle and the preliminary results obtained so far will be publicly presented in the institutions that are part of the project. So a session will be organized in Faro at October 25, other in Lisbon at November 13 and another in Évora at December 7. We aim to debate the results with interested colleagues, students and general public, in order to obtain feedback that can be useful for the rest of the project.  

0380 - Part of a shaman's mask?

Perdigões ditched enclosures present several evidences of social practices embedded in rituality and symbolism. This can be seen in the location of the site, in its architectonic design, it many of its contexts and in several of the recorded materials. We are now starting to deal with a specific object, recovered in a Late Neolithic context that has also other specific circumstances and materials that point to such a kid of social practices.

It is a deer pair of antlers still attached to part of the cranium that was cut. So the animal was killed and its skull cut in a specific way in order to maintain the two antlers.

It is known that these “objects” were associated to masks used in shamanic ceremonies since ancient times (some art interpretations take these practices back to Upper Paleolithic).

Depiction of an Evenki shaman wearing antler headdress (after Witsen 1785, 655).
Taken from Little et al. 2016, PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0152136 April 13, 2016

At Perdigões, some other signs of possible shamanic practices exist. But this one will be the next to be explored in a forthcoming paper.

0379 - Perdigões mobility at the EAA meeting in Maastricht

Today, Perdigões enclosure was present in a session of the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists held in Maastricht. The available results of former and ongoing projects on mobility were presented and discussed. So far, the general image that we are getting is of significant presence of outsiders (the majority) in the enclosures, both humans and animals, with Sr values that do not match what is being defined as local range (the granite area of the Alamo valley, Reguengos de Monsaraz). And is interesting to note that the different funerary contexts have different ranges, suggesting that they are being used by groups with different provenances. This reinforces the idea that those different, but contemporaneous, funerary contexts were involve in identity management processes, what the differences in material culture, architecture and body treatment already stressed (some of the recent publications on Perdigões deal with this issue). However, the analysis will continue, to enlarge the sample and to get a better control of the geological signatures in order to test the actual image that is quite complex and still rises some intriguing questions.

We also consider to present this same paper, more detailed, in Portugal in a conference to be organized in October or November, as part of the program for public display and debate of the ongoing results of this FCT project.

0378 - United Nations Secretary General visited Perdigões

See here

0377 - Perdigões 2017

The July 2017 campaign at the ditched enclosures of Perdigões has ended. It was focused in the central area of this large site, where structures from the earliest to the latest occupations were recorded. At least three ditches and some pits from the Late Middle Neolithic, a large pit (still to finish) and two ditches from Late Neolithic, several deposits, and stone structures from the Chalcolithic (just next to funerary features with depositions of cremated remains of hundreds of individuals) and deposits and a cairn structure from the transition/early Bronze age.

A very complex area to excavate, but also an interesting one to approach the biography and the rhythms of occupation of Perdigões.

In September, we will be back for a short period of time, to do some drone flights to get data for 3D records and to do the first field approach to a new line of research at Perdigões, establishing a new partnership.

This new line of research will focus of the acoustics conditions of the natural theatre where Perdigões are and on the roles those conditions might have played in the occupation of the site and in the practices and activities that were taken place there.

0376 - Ditched enclosures, salt and interaction

A. Areas with salt in central and eastern Iberia; B. Two possible alternative models for Alentejo salt supplying during the Chalcolithic. (Valera, 2017).

I have just published a paper about the production and circulation of salt in the Neolithic/Chalcolithic Portugal. Is there anything in this issue that might be related to Portuguese ditched enclosures, namely those in inner Alenejo? I believe so.

The complex social dynamics that we can appreciate in the inner Alentejo region during the Late Neolithic and especially during the Chalcolithic, with an intensive consume of animals in large ditched enclosures and in others not so large, with the presence of some estuarine molluscs that might have been consumed, and intensive food processing and storage, would have generated a significant demand for salt.

That would reinforce a relation with coastal regions where some sites with evidences for salt production are known. But, as I stressed in the paper, these sites are all from Late Neolithic / Early Chalcolithic. So, where are the production sites from the middle / late 3^rd millennium BC, the period when the Neo-Chalcolithic social dynamics in inner Alentejo were reaching their pick? I suggest that they may have been in the salt resources of central Iberia. The geological history of the Peninsula provided those interior areas with strong reservoirs of salt. The end of the sites that were producing salt in the Atlantic facade in the early chalcolithic, precisely when the most important area of demanding was developing, could represent a shift in the directions of interaction. The provenance studies show that Alentejo’s enclosures were involve in exchanges with coastal and more interior areas of the Peninsula. And those networks of interaction were dynamic and changes in predominant fluxes would be expectable.

The actual data on salt is suggestive. Concerning the salt, the inner Alentejo demand had two “coasts”: the Atlantic one and the central Iberian one. So, as the large ditched enclosure were involved in those large networks of relations, they might be decisive in the balance of those networks, stimulating some areas and depressing others through time.

Because they were involved in large networks of interactions, Alentejo large enclosures must have had a large range of influence in peripheral social dynamics. Not yet in a centre/periphery deterministic model, but in one more coincident with the Pear Polity Interaction proposal (still very useful).

0375 - National Monument

The ditched enclosures are a relatively recent issue in Portuguese Archaeology and Portuguese Heritage. They came late, but they came in strength. But they came at a time where agricultural changes in the area where they have their major concentration are seriously threatening them.

So far, though, only in March 2016 a ditched enclosure was classified as Site of Public Interest. It was Santa Vitória, the first identified and excavated ditched enclosure in the eighties of the last century.

But this week, after 20 years of continued research coordinated by the private company Era Arqueologia, Perdigões set of ditched enclosures was classified as National Monument, the top category for Portuguese Heritage.

It was not just Perdigões that was recognized here. It was also shown that the evaluation of public service and research must focus on the quality of the service and of the research, and not on the institutional nature of who does it.

0374 - Archaeometry of Perdigões Bell Beakers

0373 - Updating phalanx idols at Perdigões

During the coming summer solstice (not exactly, but in Sunday) the Era team will be observing the sun rise in the alignment of gate 1 again at Perdigões. During Saturday we will be at Esporão farm to guide visitors (of the Big Day event) to the exhibition of Perdigões in the medieval tower of the farm and to the deposit of materials.

I am using part of today’s holyday to prepare some materials to be shown in the deposit. Taking the phalanx idols form the plastic bags and arrange then in a box, so they can be easily appreciated.

And when I was doing this I noticed the similarity between the fracture in a phalanx collected at the surface of tomb 2 and another fragment collected at the surface of tomb 3, recently excavated and just 10 meters away.

They fit. They were both considered as different elements in my paper about the phalanx idols of Perdigões (the drawing of the top part was even presented). Now that they are reunited a new object emerged: the zig-zag hair in the back (although horizontal and not vertical like the other peace from tomb 2 – see publication) and the eyes and the arms (possibly holding something) in the front. Very similar to the other one already published, but with arms. It needs to be better cleaned now.

I always argued that keeping things in site has its benefits for trained visual memories.

The paper (see here), that addressed the phalanges but also the horse domestication problem, can now be updated. Well, not entirely: there are some more new phalanges from recent excavations that enlarge the already impressive numbers of these items at Perdigões enclosure.

0372 - Molluscs and shells at Perdigões enclosure

New paper on Perdigões enclosure. This one about the social role of molluscs and mollusc shells in the site. The main conclusion is that the consumption of molluscs and shells is mainly an issue of ideology, rather than subsistence, in the context of transregional interaction and use of exogenous materials. The majority are sea or estuarine species and, of those, it was the shell (not the mollusc) that circulated the most. Pecten maximus is one of the main presences, but in different contexts according to chronology: in depositions in ditches and pits in the Neolithic Perdigões, and a lot in funerary contexts during the chalcolithic. These and some other interesting aspects of molluscs use at a local and regional scales are discussed in the paper (in Portuguese), where large ditched enclosures show differences regarding smaller open or walled sites.

0371 - Workshop on Prehistoric deposition and fragmentation practices

Depositions and fragmentation, as intentional and meaningful social practices, are common in many European prehistoric enclosures. The same happens in Iberian ones, although not always perceived, conceptualized, and questioned as so.

To encourage the debate and research of such subjects in Portuguese archaeology the following workshop was organized and will take place in Lisbon, in 14 October. We have chosen a small auditorium of a public book store to do this. We also want to encourage the public interest.

0370 - Perdigões: 20 years of research

The Perdigões Research Program completes, in 2017, twenty years of continuous activity. Directed by Era Arqueologia, a private company, the program has established many collaborations with researchers and institutions at a national and international level, and continues to do so. This policy of open collaboration has turned Perdigões in a central context in Portuguese archaeology of Prehistory, with significant international projection. It is an emblematic project of the Portuguese Prehistoric Enclosures. Two decades of research of a site that lived for at least 1500 years gives a good idea of what remains to be done. The project is sound, though, so an interesting future is to be expected. Perdigões has a lot to give. The ability to "extract" it depends entirely on us (collectivelly). 

0369 - Back to Perdigões

The excavations return to Perdigões ditched enclosure next week. The 20th campaign is about to begin. The work will be focus in the excavation of Tomb 3, in the eastern limits of the enclosure, and in the central area, continuing the excavation of the contexts detected there last season.
As usually, the results may be followed in a daily basis in here. 

0368 - Salvada in the press

The impact in the large enclosure of Salvada, that was discussed here some posts ago, is in the front page of a national paper and has a significant report inside. As it happens in many other things in life, only when some bad happens things get to the front page. That is the criteria of the media, maybe because that is the criteria of the majority of the public.

Nevertheless, it is an important report for the Portuguese Prehistoric Enclosures, for they dramatically need this public exposure to be known, protected and start to be socially active as the important heritage and economic and cultural resource they are.

0367 - In fact, they are TWO

Just side by side. A closer look, with some colour control, shows another smaller enclosure just next to the bigger one (that show 4 and not just 3 diches). This is another important site to deal with the problem of the temporalities of enclosures and their periodic rhythms.

0366 - A new one: number 75

A new ditched enclosure (Monte de Corte Ribas 5) was identified in the context of a Master thesis (Silva, 2015). It presents at list 3 concentric ditches. It is of Chalcolithic chronology. It is number 75 in my inventory.

References:

Silva, C. (2015), O povoado do Monte das Cabeceiras 2. O estudo dos interfaces negativos e análise da componente artefactual das Fossas 13, 16 e 54. Tomar.