A paper
about the exploitation of Guadiana river resources in the enclosure of Perdigões
was recently published (and it is available here). It is a paper about a unique
decoration inside a pot.
To
interpret this decoration two hypothesis were suggested. It could be a
representation of a river raft (similar to present reed rafts of the Southwest
coast of Portugal) or it could be a representation of a fishing trap (my first
bet).
In favour of
this last possibility the presence of fish bones of river species in Perdigões was
underlined, revealing the exploitation of Guadiana river resources by the communities
that circulated in the enclosure.
This paper
has already generated some comments from colleagues and one of them (Gabriel
Martinez, from Granada University) alerted me for this evidence: a Neolithic fishing
trap recovered in Russia that seems to be very similar to the ethnographic ones
presented above, reinforcing the possibility that the image from Perdigões is evoking
the importance of the river Guadiana to these communities.
Fishing trap from the Neolithic site of Zamostje (Russia). Taken from here