0104 - Enclosures and abandonment (1)

The walled enclosure of Monte da Tumba (Torrão, Alentejo) is a good example of an intermediate abandonment in a site that originally (Silva & Soares, 1987) was considered to have a continuous sequence of occupation. 

Image taken from: http://al-qasr-abu-danis.blogspot.pt/2009/04/accao-de-sensibilizacao-povoado-do.html

“The potent stratigraphic sequence of Phase I is interrupted by also potent wall ruins. Over these ruins a new occupation phase took place and new constructions are built. In this phase, a house seems to have been burned and the roof has fallen, preserving a material assemblage in good state. New ruins are then identified and a new (3rd) phase is defined, also with new constructions, like a central tower. According to the excavators, this sequence of continuous occupation is of 500 years.”

“In this discourse, no temporary abandonments were considered. In reality, it is not probable that two moments where powerful wall ruins are formed over which new construction are built and substantial changes in material culture can be observed (like the appearance of copper metallurgy in Phase 2 or the bell beakers in phase 3) didn’t implied interruptions in the occupation of the site. Ruins and generalized destructions as described do not happen in a day (unless by catastrophe) fallowed by a new occupation next day, with new constructions, new technologies and new artefacts previously inexistent. And we must remember we are talking about 500 years.”

(taken from Valera, 2003)

In fact, this sequence clearly suggests the existence of periods of abandonment in the sequence of occupation of the site. Determine the reasons of those abandonments, their dynamics and duration (all people left at the same time? They intend to come back? Were the same, their descendents or others that reoccupied the site? Etc.), and the reasons of reoccupation are central to understand the role of these sites in local and regional settlement networks and their historical circumstances throughout time. Abandonments are as important as occupations, just like what is missing is as important as what is present. 

References:

Silva, C.T & Soares, J. (1987), “O povoado fortificado calcolítico do Monte da Tumba I – escavações de 1982-86 (resultados preliminares)”, Setúbal Arqueológica, VIII, Setúbal, p.29-79.

Valera, António Carlos (2003), “Mobilidade estratégica e prolongamento simbólico: problemáticas do abandono no povoamento calcolítico do Ocidente Peninsular”, Era Arqueologia, 5, Lisboa, p.126-149. (http://www.academia.edu/attachments/2325706/download_file)

0033 - Horta do Albardão 3 ditched enclosure

Excavation area (after Santos et al. 2009)

Location: Évora municipality, Évora district, Alentejo, South Portugal)
Chronology: Chalcolithic
Bibliographic references: (Santos et al. 2009)

Horta do Albardão 3 is a recently detected enclosure defined by, at least, one ditch.
The ditch is 2,2 meters wide and 2 meters deep, with a section in a slightly asymmetric “V” with a strait base forming a rectangular segment, similar to ditch 4 of Perdigões. It was excavated by Arqueohoje Lda in the context of rescue Archaeology. As usual in Portugal, the excavation and research done was restricted to the affected area. So, just a very small section of the ditch was excavated and no further work was required to determine or infer the size or shape of the enclosure. Nevertheless, the segment excavated seems to indicate a sinuous smoothly wavy ditch, like the one of Perdigões and others.

The ditch was dated from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC (Middle/Late Chalcolithic). Next to the ditch, a funerary pit with a human inhumation was dated from the Bronze Age.

In Iberia, the building of ditched enclosures seems to have stopped during the Chalcolitic, precisely during the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. Nevertheless, some evidences are slowly starting to appear, showing the presence of materials or specific contexts of Bronze Age in some of these sites. The same is happening in Perdigões and in Outeiro Alto 2. Except for the later, data is quite scarce yet to allow any consistent interpretation of those presences. But it is gradually becoming clear that at least some ditched enclosures, deactivated and “abandoned”, still mark the landscapes and the social memory with significant capacity of attracting the Bronze Age communities, namely to burying their death.

I called this circumstance a symbolic extend (Valera, 2003) that makes a site socially active after the abandonment related to its original context of function and meaning. A memory is not simply a passive bank of data, but one of the most active “tools” that frames human action. And sites like enclosures, ditched or walled, have the potential to be what the cognitive sciences call external memory and develop powerful means of attraction. I will be back to this issue.

References:
Valera, António Carlos, (2003), "O abandono de povoados fortificados calcolíticos no Ocidente Peninsular", ERA Arqueologia, 5, Lisboa, Colibri/ERA Arqueologia S.A., p.126-148