0441 - The new magnetogram of Folha do Ouro ditched enclosure

 Another ditched enclosure was identified and prospected within the scope of the NIA-Era investigation of ditched enclosures enclosures in Alentejo. With the logistical support of the Municipality of Serpa, the geophysical prospecting of this enclosure was made, which, being larger than previously thought, was not fully covered by the prospected area. The results, interpretation and contextualization are in the press in the proceedings of the next congress of the Association of Portuguese Archaeologists: "The enclosure of Folha do Ouro 1 (Serpa) in the context of the Alentejo calcolitic moat enclosures", by António Carlos Valera, Tiago do Pereiro, Pedro Valério and António Monge Soares. Besides Tiagome and Tiago (responsible for geophysics), Nelson Almeida and Ana Catarina Basílio participated in the fieldwork. This is the 13th ditched enclosure magnetogram produced in the context of this research program.

0415 - New image on Folha do Ouro ditched enclosure

This new areal image of Folha do Ouro enclosure, located in Serpa municipality, Alentejo, South Portugal, shows a magnificent enclosure. This enclosure was detected in google earth and published by me and Tiago do Pereiro in 2013. It has now a clearer image, that shows that it is also a sinuous ditched enclosure, similar to Xancra, Outeiro Alto 2, Santa Vitória and the recently submitted to geophysics Borralhos. They all show this pattern of regular sinuous ditched that are a characteristic of the design of the Guadiana Basin ditched enclosures.

0220 – Juromenha 1 ditched enclosure

Location: Alandroal municipality, Évora district, Alentejo, South Portugal)
Chronology: Late Neolithic
Bibliographic references: (Calado e Roque, 2013)

The ditched enclosure of Juromenha 1 was detected and surveyed in the context of the Alqueva dam mitigation process, in the early XXI century. The survey revealed a plan that suggests a wavy sinuous ditch, with a linear one running parallel. 

Plan of Juromenha 1 (after Calado e Roque, 2013)

The sinuous ditch has a “v” profile, with 2 meters wide and 1,8 meters deep. Four radiocarbon dates put this ditch between 3400-2900 BC.

Ditch section (after Calado e Roque, 2013)

If wavy ditches became more frequent in the 3^rd millennium BC in Alentejo, Juromenha 1 clearly shows (as Águas Frias and Ponte da Azambuja also do) that this design emerged in a Neolithic context, where we must search for the reasons that will allow us to explain and interpret these layouts. And not in the chalcolithic walled bastions, as once was supposed.

0175 - Looks like a new sinuous one

Another "flower" ditched enclosure in Alentejo. It is spring after all.

0172 – Linear versus sinuous

This is the north part of the enclosure of Salvada. As is clearly seen, there is a linear outside ditch and a sinuous one by the inside, with a quite regular lobular pattern (like in Xancra, Santa Vitória or Outeiro Alto 2).

How to interpret this design? The sinuous well patterned ditch implies a multiplication (more than the double) of the effort to open the ditch. And what functional purpose can we detect in that design and effort? Certainly, those that once have seen bastions in these semicircular shapes will not suggest that we have a sequence of bastions side by side, not being able to have the function of a bastion. It would be an absurd proposition, as it would be to talk about water canals.

No, this design has to be explain by the ideological dimension of Architecture and sociology of space and to approach that we have to be well supplied of social theory (of sociological, psychological, anthropological and philosophical origin), or we only be able, with the linear minds of the “axiomatic obvious”, to tell linear old stories perpetuated by lineages of members of the “definite discourse”.

0163 – And a nice new wavy one

Just discovered two days ago in Campo Maior municipality in our “satellite prospection”. In the Portuguese middle Guadiana basin patterned sinuous ditches seem to be a hit.

0157 - Sinuous ditches

A paper of mine, analyzing and debating the designs of sinuous ditches in Portugal, is available here:

http://www.academia.edu/548745/Fossos_sinuosos_na_Pre-Historia_Recente_do_Sul_de_Portugal_ensaio_de_analise_critica

Abstract

            The number of known ditched enclosures in South Portugal has been increasing in the last years, being almost thirty now. Between them, several present a peculiar design that has been designated by “sinuous ditches”. This peculiar configuration didn’t raise the necessary attention to its interpretation, as a result of a axiomatic functional attribution that doesn’t question the ideological foundations of architecture.

            In this paper, I will present the inventory of the sites with this design, which seems to concentrate in the middle Guadiana Basin. A contextual characterization will be done to support a critical analysis of the traditional interpretation and provide the argumentation for an alternative discourse, more related to a “cosmological architecture”.     

0153 - Fareleira 3 ditched enclosure

By Margarida Figueiredo

Location: Vidigueira municipality, Beja district, Alentejo, South Portugal)

(X=39131.115; Y=128230.640; Z=151.098)
Chronology: Late Neolithic
Bibliographic references: still unpublished

In the context of rescue archaeology related to the Edia´s water supply infrastructures it was discovered and surveyed the ditched enclosure of Fareleira 3, implanted in the Southeast edge of a broad plane surrounded by water, good soils and privileged view.

The archaeological context included a wide range of negative structures, excavated in the soft local bed rock consistent with an habitation context: with a great variety of pits and one shack basis, all with circular shapes, and what it appears to be a delimitation ditch, or more correctly 4 segments/modules of the same ditch in clear association with different kinds of post holes.

256- general view of the ditches

Spread over a visible area of around 0,5ha these structures were divided into two different areas and acted like two different and well assumed spaces: the first one delimited by the ditch, with a major concentration of pits and post holes. The second one, with a much more dispersed pattern, and exclusively formed by pits, concentrated in the opposite limit of the site. The very distinctive process of the different fillings in these structures amongst the two groups was itself very meaningful. It showed a much more complex filling, with constant re-cuttings of the preceding layers and with more ample sequence of deposits, joined with a generous quantity of material: ceramic, lithic, faunal remains and large depositions of stones; over the singled filing (very similar to the geologic cut-off during the opening of the pits), with none or very few elements allowing for reasonable dating.  

The profusion of pottery, especially in the interior of those ditches, is essential when framing this enclosure in the last quarter of the IV millennium, with a consistency inherent to all layers. This means that in spite of the different phases of occupation and final abandon, the time line was very short, with no serious alterations in what we may call the way of living.

Although no general plan is available we have almost 40 meter of a circular alignment of 4 short ditches merged with 4 post-holes. These ditches are different in depth, filling and width. The shorter ones (South limit) – [2513], [2402] e [2404] – presuppose a “boomerang shape plan” with similar sizes (5.50m long per 1.80m wide). While the isolated structure on the North limit – [2304] – longer and thinner than the rest (12.5m long per 1m wide) is more sinuously waved. All of them are “U” shaped structures with straight walls and depths that go from 0.46 to 1.30 meters.

218- Surveys 21, 23, 24 & 25

It looks like being the work of two different contractors: the first three interrelated segments on the south end represent a one stage building process with the excavation of the two contiguous segments overlapped by a third one working has a clinch between them, assisted by a multiple post-hole structure. The isolated ditch has nothing to do with this complex building system, but maybe that is because it corresponds to an in-between gate module.

 210- [2508] [2509] [2513]

192- [2402] [2404] [2406]

There were diagnosed two empty spaces in this line of ditches, which can be looked at from two perspectives: either they represent entrances or they indicate an unfinished work. In spite of our belief in a building staged process, it is more likely that those ditches represent deliberate gates. Both are located in the eastern side of the enclosure, a common feature to most of the enclosures spread all over the Alentejo. This fact has been studied and interpreted as a cosmological constraint, the symbolic facing to the winter solstice (Valera e Beckett, 2011).

262 - View of the works.

All these descriptions look familiar, but what do they actually tell us when it comes to their functionality and meanings? We hope that with a thorough study of the materials and a broader view of the site we can get some more answers and associate them with some other similar negative structures.

Margarida Figueiredo

0152 – A new one similar to Xancra?

It certainly looks so. This is the latest new ditched enclosure and was once more detected in Google Earth (by Tiago), in the context of our project of systematic quest for these kind of sites in Alentejo region.

Like Xancra, this new site seems to have well patterned sinuous ditches, probably three concentric ones. It was named Monte da Contenda and is just 4,5 km from Santa Vitória, another sinuous patterned ditched enclosure quite similar to Xancra. The narrow spatial proximity of some ditched enclosures starts to be an important issue for interpretation. Obtaining absolute chronologies is becoming more and more urgent to determine where these sites lived at the same time or not. Either situation is of most interest for comprehending the ditched enclosures phenomena.    

0095 – Modular architectures

This is an interesting perspective into ditched enclosures building procedures: the possibility that a ditch is not done in a row, but is a result of several modules, parts, that are added. The enclosure is a result of a process. The result is a sequence of overlapped (or almost overlapped) sections of short ditches, frequently with different dimensions.

I argue about this possibility recently, in two papers (Valera & Becker, 2011; Valera, in press). My first contact with the idea was in a paper on Herhxeim enclosures (a Neolithic LBK site), where human bones were scattered inside overlapping sections of ditches that, at the end, defined an enclosure. Then I read a short sentence in a blog from Manuel Calado and the excavations he did in Salgada (Borba, Alentejo), where he spoke of a similar situation (only with no human bones). I even did a post on that issue (see here).

Then I recall the thesis of Pedro Diaz del Rio (2008) about the building process of some walled enclosures: the possibility that walls in sites such as Los Millares or Castanheiro do Vento might have been built in modules; as independent, but converging, projects develop through time as a metaphor of a trans equalitarian social organization, still far from coercive and well stratified social relations.   

When the geophysical image of Xancra came out of the magical machine of Helmut Becker, it became clear to me that we might be in presence of a similar situation of a ditch built through the adding of modules. This is quite clear in the outside ditch of Xancra, as I point it out in the paper (Valera & Becker, 2011).

The highlights show areas where parts of the ditch seam to “join” or “overlap”.

Well, the enclosure under excavation by Era in Alentejo is confirming this situation. In the external ditch we are documenting sections, with different depths and widths, that are overlapping showing, with no doubt,  that the final enclosure is the result of a sequence of additions of ditch sections with different dimensions and made in different moments in time. The building of this outside enclosure was a long process. It was not made at once. And, naturally, it was not for defence or drainage.

Here is a gate. In both sides there is a section of the ditch that is not very deep. Then, in both sides, two new sections were made, more deep and  large, cutting the previous sections. It is clear the semi circular joining of the different sections.

Here is another overlap: the left part of the ditched, already filled, was excavated in a slide way and the new section filled with a different sequence of depositions.



Here we can see the top of the sinuous path of the outside ditch. It is quite clear that there is a part with top stones, then a section almost without stones, and then again a new section with stones (that ends at the cut present in the previous image). Even at the top filling this sectioning of the ditch is visible.

I wonder when the traditional discourse, that sees fortified settlements in all these sites, will get in time with the actual empirical evidence.  

Ah! Yes, I almost forgot: there are funerary contexts inside.

Bibliographic References:

DIÁZ-DEL-RIO, Pedro (2008), “El context social de las agregaciones de población durante el Calcolítico Peninsular”, ERA Arqueologia, 8, Lisboa, Era-Arqueologia / Colibri, p.128-137.

VALERA, António Carlos (in press), “Fossos sinuosos na Pré-História Recente do Sul de Portugal: ensaio de análise crítica”, Actas do V Encontro de Arqueologia do SW Peninsular.

VALERA, António Carlos & BECKER, Helmut (2011), “Cosmologia e recintos de fossos da Pré-História Recente: resultados da prospecção geofísica em Xancra (Cuba, Beja)”, Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património, 7, Lisboa, NIA-ERA, p.23-32.

0092 - Sinuous ditches at Perdigões

This is the geophysical image (by Helmut Becker) of a part of the double wavy ditches (3 and 4) of Perdigões and the surveyed area of Sector I (with the two ditches excavated areas and some excavated pits). The ditches are just 2,5 meters apart, but the inner one is slightly latter than the outside one (radiocarbon dating shows this). They decided to open a new ditch, just two and a half meters inside the previous one that was only half filled with horizontal deposits of stones, shards of pottery, faunal remains and some human bones. It would be easier to re-excavate the previous ditch. But they didn’t. It seems that they decided to open a new one, wavy, parallel and very near to the one already existing in that area (to be filled in a similar way). Once more, the traditional functional and economical logic fails here.

0072 - Águas Frias ditched enclosure

Location: Alandroal municipality, Évora district, Alentejo, South Portugal)
Chronology: Late Neolithic
Bibliographic references: Calado & Rocha, 2007.


Plan of Águas Frias (after Clado & Rocha, 2007)

Águas Frias is an interesting enclosure excavated during the rescue program of Alqueva dam, but still to be fully published. Is located in the valley of the Lucefecit river, a tributary of the Guadiana.

It presents in the left bank of the river three apparently concentric ditched enclosures, designed by wavy ditches with “V” profiles, being the middle one more regular in plan than the others and presenting the outside one a complex sequence of negative elongated structures in the north part. Based on its archaeological material the site was dated from Late Neolithic (second half of the 4th millennium BC).

Because the archaeological intervention was done when the dam was already flooding, the Lucefecit was then much larger and it was impossible to know if the ditches go through the river to the other side and the enclosures would be crossed by the water stream, as it happen in other cases (Porto Torrão, in Portugal; Pijotilla in Spain).

Nevertheless, the site was interpreted as a village and the ditches as defensive structures associated to palisades which ended in the water borders, creating an image of a semi circular settlement.


Águas Frias model(after Calado, 2007, in http://megasettlements.blogspot.com/2007/01/re-creating-past_24.html).

An interesting aspect, yet to be explained, is the way in which one of the ditches ends, presenting the extremity in a ramp filled with a stone pavement.


Image of the ditch end (after Calado & Rocha, 2007)

0047 – Alto do Outeiro ditched enclosure

Location: Beja municipality, Beja district, Alentejo, South Portugal)
Chronology: Chalcolithic
Bibliographic references: Grilo, 2007

Located in a small hill, Alto do Outeiro was partially surveyed in an emergency context in 2005. Several pits and two ditches were identified. Ditch 1 had a “V” section with 2,20m wide and, 1,5 to 1,3m deep. It was filled with several deposits in a bowed way.



Section of ditch 1 (after Grilo, 2007)

Ditch 2 presented a wavy plan in the area excavated, and the filling was more complex than in ditch 1: stone drops and pits excavated in previous filling deposits were recorded.



Ditch 2 (after Grilo, 2007)

Geophysical prospection was done, but the results were relatively poor. Some pit area were detected and the plan of ditch 2 was interpreted as a sub rectangular shape of 20x18 m.



Part of the geophysical image (ditches area). (after Grilo, 2007)

The shape in the published image is not clear though, and the fact that the quality of the image is not the best associated to the wavy layout of the ditch might induce in error about the real plan of the enclosure. I have my doubts about a sub rectangular shape.

On the other hand, in the lower part of the image, two possible wavy ditches seem to be present, inclusively with and entrance.

0045 – Monte do Olival 1: a preliminary glimpse into the inside enclosures.

Here is a preliminary geophysical image obtained by Helmut Becker at Monte do Olival 1, in the context of the NIA-ERA project on archaeoastronomy of ditched enclosures directed by me and financed by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. The image reflects only the two inside ditches. There are at list more two.
There is still work to be done to improve the image (Helmut will be working on it), since geological interference is strong. But, once again, results are very good. Sinuous wavy ditches are present once more and the similarity to Xancra, Outeiro Alto 2 or Santa Vitória is striking, reinforcing the idea that the design of these particular wavy enclosures has specific patterns and meanings, responding to particular goals.
And the already stressed tendency for circularity and concentricity of these complexes of enclosures is also confirmed.

0019 - "Wavy ditches"

The number of known ditched enclosures in South Portugal has been increasing in the last years, being almost thirty now. Between them, several present a peculiar design that has been designated by “sinuous ditches”. This peculiar configuration didn’t raise the necessary attention to its interpretation, as a result of a functional attribution that doesn’t question the ideological foundations of architecture.

In a recent paper (Valera, in print 2010) I presented a first attempt to organize these particular designs in four basic categories according to integral or almost integral plans of ditches:

A. Sequences of regular and aggregated lobes (1. Santa Vitória; 2. Outeiro Alto 2; 3. Xancra); B. Sequences of separated regular lobes (4. Moreiros 2; 5. Águas Frias); C. Regular wavy (6. Juromenha 1; 7. Perdigões); D. Irregular wavy (8. Águas Frias; 9. Perdigões).

This morphological diversity is certainly meaningful and the traditional association to the design of walls with bastions, if arguable for some of these categories (such as the B. or even D.), is clearly unacceptable for the A. and C.. Explanations for the particular designs like the ones in Xancra, Santa Vitória or Outeiro Alto, that so far represent a specificity of the middle Portuguese Guadiana basin, need to be searched elsewhere. In the quoted paper I argued that some answers can be found in the ideological connotation of architecture, namely in its cosmological foundation. Locations, topography, astronomic orientation, landscape connections and design, all talk about architectures that are impregnated by cosmologic senses, without which these sites cannot be comprehended.

Reference:
Valera, António Carlos (in print 2010), “Fossos sinuosos na Pré-História Recente do Sul de Portugal: ensaio de análise crítica”, Actas do V Encontro de Arqueologia do SW Peninsular.