0180 – Perdigões – Sertor I

This is a detail of the magnetogram of Perdigões enclosure, focused on Sector I, located in an intermediate area of the site, with the highlight of the sinuous ditches 3 (the outside one) and 4 (the inside one) and with the plan of the survey done in the area in 2007 and 2008. There, sections were made in the two ditches and an assemblage of pits were identified and excavated.

Radiocarbon dating revealed (in coherence with the material culture) that both ditches belong to Chalcolithic, but also that the outside one (Ditch 3) was probably open earlier than the inside one (Ditch 4). When Ditch 4 started to be filled, Ditch 3 was already partially, but not completely, filled. They date from the second quarter and middle 3rd millennium BC.

The fillings reveal structure depositions of stones, pottery, faunal and human remains in the bottom half parts of the ditches and a change of the filling processes in the upper levels. These filling processes, their nature and material present,  the sinuous design of the ditches, their proximity and the fact that the inside one was open later but so near to the earlier outside one and when it was still not totally filled, all point to intentional human practices of structured depositions inside ditches, at least in their bottom half. 

The pits are in general also Chalcolithic, except the pink ones in the plan. Those have primary funerary human depositions from Late Neolithic (second half of the 4th / beginning of the 3rd millennium BC)

Several papers have already been published referring to these contexts:

COELHO, Manuela (2008), “A fauna malacológica proveniente do Sector I do recinto calcolítico dos Perdigões”, Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património, 3, Lisboa, NIA-ERA, p.35-40. 

COSTA, Cláudia (2010), "Os restos faunísticos de animais vertebrados do Sector I dos Perdigões (fossas e fossos 3 e 4)", Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património, 6, Lisboa, NIA-ERA Arqueologia, p.53-74.

COSTA, C. (2010) – Os restos faunísticos de animais vertebrados do sector I dos Perdigões (Fossos 3 e 4 e Fossas)” Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património, 6, pp.53-74.

COSTA, C. (2010) – “Problemática do enchimento dos Fossos 3 e 4 (sector I) dos Perdigões (Reguengos de Monsaraz) com base da análise estratigráfica dos restos faunísticos”, BETTENCOURT, A. M. S., ALVES, M. I. C. e MONTEIRO-RODRIGUES, S. (eds.), Variações Paleoambientais e Evolução Antrópica no Quaternário do Ocidente Peninsular/Palaeoenvironmental Changes and Anthropization in the Quaternary of Western Iberia, Braga, 2010, pp. 113-124.

GODINHO, Ricardo (2008), “Deposições funerárias em fossa nos Perdigões: dados antropológicos do Sector I”, Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património, 3, Lisboa, NIA-ERA, p.29-34. 

MARTA-MORENO, G. e CABAÇO, N. (2009), “Restos faunísticos em contexto funerário: fossas 7 e 11 dos Perdigões (Reguengos de Monsaraz)”, Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património, 4, Lisboa, NIA-Era Arqueologia, p.11-14

VALERA, António Carlos (2008), “Intervenção arqueológica de 2007 no interior do recinto pré-histórico dos Perdigões (Reguengos de Monsaraz)”, Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património, 1, NIA-ERA, p. 15-22. 

VALERA, António Carlos (2008), “O recinto calcolítico dos Perdigões: fossos e fossas do Sector I.”, Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património, 3, Lisboa, NIA-ERA, p.19-27. 

VALERA, António Carlos e GODINHO, Ricardo (2009), "A gestão da morte nos Perdigões (Reguengos de Monsaraz): novos dados, novos problemas", Estudos Arqueológicos de Oeiras, 17, Oeiras, Câmara Municipal, p.371-387.