0300 - Looking back at Senhora da Alegria

Here is an aerial perspective of the excavation of one of the sectors in Senhora da Alegria (excavations of Omniknos Lda). In this area we have ditches from the Middle Neolithic and a larger ditch dated from the Late Neolithic. It is that larger one that we can see in the image overlapping a smaller one that partially runs beside it. This important site shows us a sequence of ditch construction that, with periods of abandonment, covers a significant part of the Neolithic, since the second half of the 6^th millennium BC until the late 4^th millennium BC. The monographic publication of the excavations will take some time. It is a complex site with a great deal of archaeological materials. The importance of the site, though, will oblige to some extra commitment.

0177 – Back to Senhora da Alegria

To show an image of a Middle Neolithic ditch that was sampled for pollen analysis. It belongs to a phase of occupation that was dated to the second quarter of the fourth millennium BC.
An intervention of Omniknos company.

0150 – The oldest ditch in Portugal

Was recorded in Senhora da Alegria and belongs to the Early Neolithic occupation dated from the third quarter of the 6th millennium BC, with one of the highest percentages of “cardial” decorated pottery known in western Iberia.

 A preliminary presentation of the context will be done next February, 16 (see here).

0142 – The strange entrance

At the Senhora da Alegria, two small ditches define a gate. They probably date from middle Neolithic and document one of the earlier contexts with ditches in Portuguese Prehistory. Not the earliest, because in the previous occupation of Early Neolithic of the same site another small ditch was identified.

But if they are not the earliest at least have the most strange and interesting gate structure ever.

The structure in front the gate of one of the ditch structures of Senhora da Alegria.

0131 - Enclosures in meetings

The enclosures of Senhora da Alegria (left) and Bela Vista 5 (right) will have their first public presentations next February, in the annual meeting of ERA Arqueologia. The first site have an important sequence from Early Neolithic to Late Neolithic (and some punctual occupations afterwards); the second is from the beginning of Bronze Age and presents a ceremonial context in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic tradition.

0118 - Senhora da Alegria again

Here is a small enclosure detected in the highest platform of Senhora da Alegria set of enclosures.

In terms of stratrigraphy, it is posterior to the Early Neolithic occupation and it seems to be prior to the Late Neolithic one.  It is a very small ditched enclosure, apparently oval, with only one gate. The ditch is deeper in the gate sides and progressively becomes lesser deep towards the back. It was filled with layers of stones and clay, with very few materials, mainly polished stone tools.

Inside, and not centred, there was only a fireplace, conserving large fragments of wood charcoal.

The plant and the inside fireplace remember other European small enclosures, namely in Ireland and in Italy. In Portugal, and from Late 3^rd millennium, we have other examples in Alentejo, where a pit grave substitute the inside fireplace.

In fact, we are just start to become aware of the large diversity and complexity of the processes of enclosing that took place in Western Iberia Prehistory. New empirical data is emerging every day. But most of it still way from debate and scientific forums.

0083 - Cutting and re-cutting

Some ditches present evidences of re-cutting. When a previous and larger ditch is totally or partially filled, sometimes another smaller ditch is dug in those deposits. Usually, this is not a total reopening of the first ditch, but simple of a small part. That is the case recently detected at Senhora da Alegria, in a ditch belonging to the Late Neolithic phase.

This means that we cannot look at this reopening as a “maintenance task”, but rather as a new use (even if with similar purposes) of a previous perceived structure. And the argument of saving efforts, by excavating deposits rather than bedrock, is not always an argument. At Senhora da Alegria all ditches are excavated in deposits, being of previous occupations or of weathered sandstones. So, no big difference can be assumed in terms of work invested. So why are there, in the more than a dozen ditches already identified, situations like new ditches using part of previous similar structures?; situations that new ditches are open quite near to others without reopening them?; situations where a new smaller ditch is totally dug inside another?

The answers can be different for all situations and probably related to several dimensions of a living site: changes in space organization; changes in the occupied area; consequences of a seasonal occupation, etc. But what I want to argue is that the reopening of a previous ditch that is filled with stones and archaeological material is not just an economic strategy of those communities or an activity that brings troubles to the archaeologists (because changes and mixes older materials with recent ones): it is an intervention that is strongly conditioned by the earlier structure, in physical terms, but also in meaningful ones. It is a moment when a given community interacts with previous construction and previous materials. What would they think when they dug previous artefacts? Would they just have a “catchment attitude”? Or were those materials seen as a link to ancestors? How would a segment point or an early arrowhead be seen by a person that produces more recent bifacial and all retouched arrowheads? Or a decorated shard in a moment where all pottery was undecorated?

Digging a ditch in previous structures is different from digging a ditch in the bedrock. That is certain, but not only because of the labour involved or because of a similar space organization. It has consequences in other dimensions that are important to understand past decisions and their outcomes.

0082 - Alegria’s early contexts

At Senhora da Alegria the excavation in course steel reveals new structures from several Prehistoric periods, now apparently reaching the Late Chalcolithic or even Bronze Age (we already have a Late Bronze Age deposition of two vessels). But in a specific area, early Neolithic contexts keep appearing.

At the bottom of the stratigraphic sequence, a layer with scattered stones, fireplaces, pottery and microlithic materials revealed (in the top) an alignment of post holes (possibly from another orthogonal structure). Decorated pottery is present, including this “cardial” decorated shard.

This level is cut by a small ditch that has a structured gate facing East. This ditch is, in terms of the stratigraphic sequence, from the same phase of the sub rectangular house detected earlier.

These two moments correspond to the earliest occupations of the site that can be addressed generally to the early and transition to the middle Neolithic. But the occupation is incredibly long (even if not continuous).

0070 - Neolithic ditches and rectangular houses

Senhora da Alegria is a surprising and important site, by the combination of its location, structures and chronologies.

It is located in central Portugal, where the littoral platform gives way to the central mountains and in one of the pathways to the hinterland of Beira Alta central Portugal, where no ditched/palisade enclosures were known until now.

A sequence of occupations dating from Early Neolithic (with “cardial” decorated pottery) to Late Neolithic is being excavated by the Omniknos company (scientific coordination of António Valera and field direction of Tiago do Pereiro and Rui Ramos) in a context of archaeological emergency intervention.

The site presents several ditches, some of them probably corresponding to palisades, that form more than one enclosure, with several moments of construction with structures cutting other structures.


One of the ditches of the eastern side of the site.

Those ditches cut previous early Neolithic layers and some of them may be also from the same period and others from a middle Neolithic phase. These ditches are then covered by layers with positive stone structures, dating from middle/late Neolithic.




One of the ditches of the western side of the site, going under Late Neolithic layers.

It is, therefore, the earliest site with this kind of structures known in Portugal (and in this area of Portugal), revealing that also in western Iberia this architectures are present at the early stages of the Neolithic (as was already documented in eastern Iberia).

But it also present one (at the moment) rectangular house. Rectangular Neolithic houses are quite rare in Western Europe. In Portugal, for the recently excavated and published site of Castelo Belinho in Algarve (by Mário Varela Gomes), post holes were argued to be evidences of the presence of rectangular houses. Nevertheless, some scepticism has been revealed by some scholars relating those interpretations, because of the large and scattered number of post holes. But at the present site the image of the structure is striking and leaves no doubts: a sub-rectangular house (with slightly rounded corners), with central posts aligned with the entrance (facing east), with 10,5 x 5,5 meters.


Image of the house post holes.


One of the post holes of the entrance (left) and one of the central ones, reaveling two construction moments (right) .

So, this archaeological context also presents for the first time in Iberia the “association” of rectangular houses with ditches at a same site and gives strength to the interpretations developed for the Algarve’s site.



Located at in a hinterland transitional point, this site is already fundamental to the research of Neolithic process of West Iberia, to the emerging of the surrounding megalithism (and the Beira Alta one) and to the problems concerning the appearance of ditches/palisades enclosure architectures in the peninsula.

Not everything is bad news in this new year of 2012.