0267 – Towers and huts

Late central towers at Porto das Carretas (left); stone huts at Mercador (up right); late central stone hut at Monte do Tosco 1 (down right). See how dimensions are quite similar.

            There are some Portuguese walled enclosures that, according to their excavators, present central towers in the latest phases when the wall are no longer functioning and enclosing. That is the case of Monte da Tumba, S. Pedro or Porto das Carretas. In general, these structures just present some rows of stones, are circular and tend to date from the Late Chalcolithic (some associated to Bell Beaker).

            However, it is never clearly explained why they are interpreted as towers. In fact, similar structures, with the same width and high and with identical diameters, are interpreted as huts. That is the case of the two huts of Mercador. They have the same dimensions of the so called towers of Porto das Carretas, they are from the same general period as the later, they dist just 1,5kms and they even are united by a short wall like the structures at Porto das Carretas. So structurally, how can we distinguish the base of a stone hut from the base of a stone tower, when we do not have enough information to estimate the vertical development of the structure?

            The larger hut at Mercador has a central post hole. But a two floors tower would probably have one also. And not all structures considered huts present internal post holes. At Mercador or Monte do Tosco, huts present internal fire places and areas of storage. But couldn’t towers present them also. During the Late Chalcolithic, what could be inside a hut that couldn´t be inside a tower? So, internal context also doesn’t help much in establishing a difference.

            So, in what bases do we call towers to the late central structures in Porto das Carretas, S. Pedro or Monte da Tumba? Or are they really stone huts, associated to late occupations of these sites? We need criteria and solid evidence to name these structures.

0160 – Bastions, towers, huts: perceptions of walled enclosures structures

It is a fact that a significant number of walled and ditched enclosures have plans that tend to circularity and that angles are rare. Well, if this statement is a rule for ditched enclosures, for walled ones it has some exceptions.

In fact, there are some walled enclosures that present designs made by strait sections of walls that connect forming open angles, where we usually find circular constructions that in Portuguese archaeological literature are immediately interpreted as bastions or towers. 

One of the classic sites is Pedra do Ouro (Lisbon district) walled enclosure. But more recently, walled enclosures with a polygonal tendency have been recorded in Alentejo, namely Porto das Carretas in Mourão municipality and São Pedro in Redondo Municipality, following designs also suggested in some sites of south Spain, like Cerro de los Vientos de La Zarcita or Campos.

 Plans of São Pedro (Mataloto, 2010) and Porto das Carretas (Silva e Soares, 2002). Click to enlarge.

This rupture with circularity is also seen in some French walled enclosures, like Boussargues. But here some new perspectives were developed that I think it would be interesting for Iberian archaeologist to consider and some Spanish colleagues have done just so (inclusively for the well known forts of Los Millares). At Boussargues, the round structures at the angles of the walls were taken as previous constructions. It was later, in a second phase of construction, that they were united by sections of strait walls (Colomer, et al. 1990), like dots united by lines in a paper. In this case, the strait design of the walls seems to be induced by the previous circular structures (that are not bastions or towers, but households), generating a more polygonal shape. This is a quite different process from building an enclosure that was planned ahead and it raises a lot of questions about the way some archaeological structures have been interpreted in Iberia.  

Boussargues (Calomer, et al, 1990 adapted)

If we look to the published plans of Porto das Carretas and São Pedro we can see that in several situations the areas of the angles and the connections to the so called bastions or towers are quite destroyed. Sometimes stratigraphic relations between the structures cannot be observed and interpretation is relying on presumptions.

Well, it seems that examples like Boussargues were not taken in consideration in the interpretation of similar Portuguese enclosures. But I think it would be useful to approach the records of this sites (Porto das Carretas and São Pedro are no longer physically available for research, as we all know, so we only rely on the records of the excavations) with this perspective and question them free from some prejudices.

Bibliographic References:

Colomer, A. , Coularou, J. e Gutherz, X. (1990), “Boussargues (Argelliers, Hérault). Un habitat ceituré chalcolitique : les fouilles du secteur oust.”, Documents d’Archéologie Française, 24, Paris.

Mataloto, Rui (2010), “O 3º/4º milénio a.C. no povoado de São Pedro (Redondo, Alentejo Central): fortificação e povoamento na planície centro alentejana“, (GONÇALVES, V. e SOUSA, A.C., Eds), Transformação e mudança no centro e sul de Portugal: o 4º e o 3º milénios a.n.e., Cascais, CMC, p.263-295.

Silva, C.T. e Soares, J. (2002), "Porto das Carretas. Um povoado fortificado do vale do Guadiana", Almadan, 2ª Série, 11, p.176-180.

0035 – Porto das Carretas walled enclosure

Plan of Porto das Carretas after Soares & Silva, 2010.

Location: Mourão municipality, Évora district, Alentejo, South Portugal)
Chronology: Chalcolithic
Bibliographic references: (Soares & Silva, 2010)

Located on the top of a small hill in the left bank of the Guadiana river, the site is today totally submerged by the Alqueva dam.

Two phases of occupation were detected, separated by a period of abandonment. The first phase was related with a construction of a walled enclosure, with three rows of stone (and possibly also earth) walls interpreted as fortifications. Only the plan of the interior one is partially available, and is composed by strait walls suggesting a polygonal shape, with a bastion in one corner. This phase is dated from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC.

The second phase is related to the construction of several connected circular stone structures. A central one (with entrances to three of the others) is considered a “tower”, while the rest (some of them of the same size) are considered huts. This reoccupation of the site is made over the ruins and abandonment levels of the first phase, is dated from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC and associated to the presence of bell beaker pottery (International style) and copper metallurgical work.

On the other side of the river, just 15 kms away, stands the large set of enclosures of Perdigões, older than Porto das Carretas (started at Late Neolithic) and contemporaneous of its both phases of occupation.
Nevertheless, a “world of differences” separates the two sites. Architecture, dimension, duration, topography of location, relation with funerary practices, evidences of connection with distant regions, etc. And another “world of differences” occurs today in the interpretation of those dissimilarities.