464 - Investimento na abertura de fossos / Investments in opening ditches

 

Perfis dos fossos já sondados nos Perdigões, organizados cronologicamente. Um texto no prelo que será publicado no final do ano aborda o investimento em trabalho na abertura destes fossos e de outros recintos de fossos do sul de Portugal. Uma abordagem importante para melhor fundamentar empiricamente interpretações e percepções.

Profiles of the ditches already surveyed in Perdigões, organized chronologically. A text in press that will be published at the end of the year addresses the investment in work in opening these ditches and other ditch enclosures in southern Portugal. An important approach to better empirically ground interpretations and perceptions.

0449 - Perdigões Timber Circle

Esta é uma proposta de reconstituição preliminar do Timber Circle no centro dos recintos de fossos dos Perdigões publicada na National Geographic História (ilustração de Luís Taklim). Datado de entre 2800-2600 a.C., é uma estrutura até ao momento única na Península Ibérica e que parece enquadrar-se na tradição de construção de estruturas cerimoniais em madeira da Europa Central e das Ilhas Britânicas. A sua escavação está ainda em curso.

This is the proposal for a preliminary reconstitution of the Timber Circle in the center of the Perdigões ditched enclosures published in National Geographic História (illustration by Luís Taklim). Dating back to between 2800-2600 BC, it is a unique structure on the Iberian Peninsula and seems to fit in with the tradition of building ceremonial wooden structures in Central Europe and the British Isles. Its excavation is still ongoing.

0443 - Perdigões "woodhenge" in european context.

0442 - A timber circle in the centre of Perdigões ditched enclosure.

 With significant repercussion in the media, the recent confirmation of a timber circle in the centre of Perdigões enclosure is, in fact, a major finding in Iberian archaeology, namely in the context of enclosure phenomena. Right in the centre of the large ditched enclosure of Perdigões (that has 450m diameter) there is this 20m diameter timber circle with several concentric rows of palisades and post alignments, with an apparent entrance aligned with the summer solstice (in the third part that has been exposed so far). The external rows have been dated between 2800-2600 BC.

It is the first monumental structure of this kind found in Iberia and its closest parallels are in central Europe or in YK. Which brings immediately the question of what does this find means: something unique or just a point of an unsuspected iceberg?

Independently of that, this structure confirms some earlier findings that indicate that in Iberia there was also and important prehistoric architecture in wood (and not just in stone and earth), some of them were already presented in this blog (see Outeiro Alto 2 or Estácio 6). It also reaffirms the ceremonial status of Perdigões enclosures and the significance of the centre of that natural amphitheatre, that present a recurrent with ceremonial architectures and practices during the 3^rd millennium BC.

In the left, the third exposed of the timber circle; in the right, the projection of that third to have a glimpse over the dimension of the structure.

A first partial interpretative proposal.

0439 - New Publication on Perdigões enclosure

The monographic study of Tomb 4 of Perdigões enclosure has just been published. It can be downloaded here: http://www.nia-era.org/publicacoes/cat_view/18-monografias-livros

0435 - Dogs at Perdigões enclosure

Like other Chalcolithic enclosures, Perdigões has several contexts where dogs or parts of dogs were deposited. From burials, to the depositions of skulls, mandibles or parts of limbs, dogs represent a specific type of deposition of animal remains at the site. Recent isotopic studies carried on in a project funded by Portuguese Science Foundation (developed by Era Arqueologia, ICArEHB-UAlg and Hércules-UÉvora) show that humans and dogs had similar diets (with dogs in the same trophic level of humans), showing an already well-established proximity between them in social terms.

Biliographic references:

Valera, A. ; Žalaitė, I. ; Maurer, A.F.; Grimes, V.; Silva, A.M.; Ribeiro, S.; Santos, J.F.; Barrocas Dias, C. (2020) -  Addressing human mobility in Iberian large prehistoric ditched enclosures: the case of Perdigões (South Portugal). Journal of Archaeological Sciences Reports. 30: 102264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102264

Zalaite, I.; Maurer, A.F. ; Grimes, V. ; Silva, A.M. ; Ribeiro, S.; Santos J.F.; Dias, C.B.; Valera, A.C. (2018) - Diet and mobility of fauna from Late Neolithic–Chalcolithic site of Perdigões, Portugal. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 19, p.674–685, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.03.033

0433 - About social resistance strategies at Perdigões enclosure

This video talks a bit about the strategies of social resistance and identity management that we may detect in the funerary practices at Perdigões enclosure (in Portuguese).

0431 - Paper on mobility of humans and animals at Perdigões

Abstract:

To access the role of mobility in the social trajectory of Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic societies in the South of

Portugal (Southwest Iberia) a project was design to address the human, animal and object/raw material flow

present at Perdigoes enclosure. Perdigoes, located in the inner Alentejo region, has a long chronology from Late

Middle Neolithic to Late Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age (middle 4th and 3rd millennium BC). It is a large complex

of ditched enclosures (with at least 16 ditches), presenting several funerary contexts, an abundance of faunal

remains and significant concentrations of exogenous materials in tombs. In this study human and animal mobility

are addressed through 87Sr/86Sr isotopic analysis. 69 individuals dating from Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic, with provenance from 9 different archaeological contexts inside the enclosures (tombs, ditches and pits) were analysed.

Human data are presented along with previously published strontium isotope ratios from fauna (n = 28; Canis

familiaris, Bos taurus, Sus sp., Ovis/Capra, Cervus elaphus, Equus sp.) from the same chronological range and several contextual provenances (Zalaite et al., 2018). Plant samples (n = 20) that cover local and peripheral lithologies were used for establishing local bioavailable strontium isotope ranges. To compare with the Perdigoes results, 9 human samples from 3 megalithic monuments (Cebolinhos 1, Comenda 1 and Vidigueiras 2) of the local settlement network were also analysed. The results show a significant scaled mobility of humans and animals in Perdigoes, a contextual variation between the funerary contexts within the site and a significant contrast with the individuals from local megalithic monuments. These results, combined with other archaeological data at the site, agree with the interpretation of the site as a large aggregation centre integrated in large scale interaction networks.

0430 - New web-page of Perdigões enclosure

In this new web-page there is a lot of information about Perdigões ditched enclosure: research organisation, team, projects, structures, archaeological materials, main excavated contexts, bibliography, isotopic and radiocarbon data bases, etc. Explore it here.

0429 - Perdigões and its idols

0428 - Copper metallurgy at Perdigões enclosure

Copper metallurgy was important at Perdigões. Raw material, crucibles, slag, hammers, artefacts and  waste occur in significant numbers. Here are some examples of the tools present at the site.

0427 - Perdigões at an exhibition of Iberian prehistoric idols

An exhibition joining some of the most fantastic Neolithic and Chalcolithic idols was organised at the MARQ (Archaeological Museum of Alicante, Spain). The ditched enclosure of Perdigões is represented with several items and a paper on the the role of these human figurines at the site was published in the catalogue of the exhibition. This is the image of the Spanish version. But an English one is in press.

0425 - "Tombs" for pots.

In the centre of Perdigões ditched enclosure there are contexts of depositions of human cremated remains dated from the middle of the 3rd millennium with no parallel in Iberia. Those remains were transported in large pots and deposited in pits. Some of the pots were broken in situ inside the pits with the humans remains. For others, small pits were opened for receiving the broken shards of these pots. That is the case of Pit 91, that received part of a big pot and a pile of shards of another bigger one. The shards were deposited in a pile and slide down, as their removing sequence shows. In the involving sediments some few human burned bones and a burned arrow head were collected (they were probably attached to the pot's walls).
This is not a funerary pit, but a pit related to the ritual (involving the braking of the transportation pots) performed in that area regarding the human cremated remains.

The big pot:

Removing the shards in their stratigraphic sequence:

0424 - "Sun eyes"

This is one more schematic anthropomorphic figurine from the context of depositions of human cremated remains in the central area of Perdigões ditched enclosures. This one, from 2019 campaign of excavations, just missed the  exhibition of Iberian Prehistoric Idols that recently opened in Alicante, where some of its companions from the same context are present.

0423 - Experimental archaeology at Perdigões

Last campaign at Perdigões we initiated a project to value the effort involved in the digging of ditches at the site. The goal is to estimate, in more solid grounds, the amount of work involved in opening ditches, namely the relation between time / number of workers / excavated volume. We aim to have a better understanding of the social, logistic and economic impact of the big public enterprises that took place at Perdigões.

For this, the Era project had the collaboration of Pedro Cura, who built the tools according to what we know about the tools used in Prehistoric mining, and excavate a part of the geologic in Perdigões, controlling time, volume and the use of different tools. We also aim to see the effect of the work in the tools, aiming to contribute to the identification of archaeological artifacts that might have been used in these tasks.

This was just a first approach that we want to develop in the context of the Perdigões Research Project developed by Era Arqueologia.

0431 - Permanence through periodicity and repetition

The crazy overlaps in the central area of Perdigões ditched enclosures during all the 3rd millennium BC (and between the timber constructions and the stone cairn there were 3 pits with the deposition of human cremated remains and a depositions of human cremated and none cremated remains in open air - more than 260 MNI in total).

0428 - One year of Neolithic Perdigões

It was precisely one year ago that the book on the Neolithic phases of Perdigões enclosures was published online. During this year it was downloaded for almost a thousand times (980 to be precise). It deals with the emergence of the site and its first 500 years of development, between 3400-2900 BC.
To be downloaded here.

0422 - A Continental Beaker (influence) in Perdigões?

From the later contexts in the central area of the enclosures, this beaker with a high profile and an unseen decoration (circular jagged impressions, almost as stamps) presents a stylistic proximity to some continental beakers, namely in the shape.

Similar high profiles are not common in Iberia, but some are known, also with unused decorations in the walled enclosure of Fraga da Pena (Beira Alta, Central Portugal) with a similar chronology (end of the 3rd millennium BC).

Mobility comes to mind.

0421 - A timber circle in the centre of Perdigões enclosure

Perdigões central enclosure (timber circle). Unique in Iberia, this structure recently identified reinforces the importance of this National Monument that has been in research by Era Arqueologia for the last 20 years.

0417 - New campaign at Perdigões enclosure

Is now in course the 2019 campaign of excavations at Perdigões enclosures. You may follow the news here.