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.