0333 - Excavating at Montoito ditched enclosure

The site of Montoito has recently been affected again by deep plouwing. Before planting the vineyard and, taking into account the results obtained on site by the geofisic survey, we decided to conduct a small test-pit in the second ditch in order to get a stratigraphic reading. Although a bigger excavation was recommended the circumstances did not make it possible. Nevertheless the results of this small intervention improved the knowledge of the site. 

The excavation has identified a ditch with the V shape, 3 meters wide and 3 deep, cut in the bedrock at a ratio of 1:1. The ceramic collected lets us propose the occupation of the site in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly soon after. Thus, the small enclosure ditches of Montoito must have been contemporary of the latest ditches of Perdigões that lies just 8km South.

Rui Mataloto