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.