RCAAP Repository

Study of thirty small bronze goat figurines. They appear in the southwest of Hispania, from Bajo Alemtejo to Alta Extremadura, in the southern territory of the Provincia Lusitania. Its dispersion coincides with epigraphs dedicated to the local Celtic goddess Ataecina, which confirms its relationship with the cult of this divinity, raised since 1885 when F. Fita interpreted the inscriptions on two of these bronze goats found in La Zafrilla, Cáceres. Some of them offer a style of evident quality, although the majority are works of popular artisans. Although their archaeological context is unknown, their style date them from the III century BC. until the 2nd or 3rd century AD. They testify to a popular rite practiced for more than half a millennium related to the cult of Ataecina, documented by more than 30 inscriptions and these 30 goat bronze figurines, which should be considered a minimum sample of the testimonies in Antiquity. Therefore, it was a very popular and widespread cult, probably originating from an ancestral Mother Goddess, perhaps of megalithic origin, practiced by the Celtici, the Celtic people who inhabited those territories until its Christianization.

Historiography of the Lusitanians from Antiquity and the Renaissance, in which they were mythologized by their harsh opposition to Rome, up to the present. The contributions of archeology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, of linguistics from the mid-twentieth century and of ethnoarchaeology in recent years, have specified its territory, its material culture, its language, its divinities and its customs, as well as its long process of ethnogenesis from the Bronze Age until Rome creates the Provincia Lusitania, c. 15 BC. The Lusitanians were an Indo-European people who inhabited the western areas of the Iberian Peninsula from the Miño to the Guadiana river. These territories constituted a Finis terrae in Antiquity, reason why the Lusitanians offer a process of longue durée that explains its Indo-European “proto-celtic” character, with a social structure, a language and a religion peculiar by its archaism, which situates them between Celts and Italics.

The excavations carried out in the Historic Center of Oeiras in 2017/2018 have uncovered structures from different epochs, that reach the Contemporary Age. It goes back to the Roman period the oldest occupation of the site, represented by a building of orthogonal plan, to which succeeded structures later, some of them related to ceramics of Late Antiquity. For their interest, the publication of this small group of pieces was considered justified.

A brief synthesis of the genesis and performance of the “Sociedade Archeologica Lusitana”, founded in Setúbal in 1849, is presented, highlighting several aspects of the archaeological excavations in Troia between 1850 and 1856 and several setbacks with which he then encountered, based on correspondence up to the present unpublished currently conserved in the Historical Archive of the Ministry of Public Works.

We present the historiography of the archaeological interventions carried out in the pre-Romanic church of São Gião (Nazaré). The economic and social evolution verified in the space in which it is inserted, based on the information of the abundant documentation of medieval and modern times, partly studied by several authors, is discussed.

The life, personal and scientific life of Sebastião Philippes Martins Estácio da Veiga, whose 190 years of his birth are celebrated in 2018, is summarily presented. He was born in the Algarve and was commissioned in 1877 by the Portuguese Government to prepare the Carta Arqueológica do Algarve. Of the fieldwork he conducted with remarkable dedication and commitment throughout the then-designated Algarve Province, resulted in the publication of the most brilliant work of Archeology to date produced in Portugal: the Antiguidades Monumentais do Algarve.

A brief summary of the events personally experienced by Afonso do Paço was presented during his mobilization in France during the First World War. Written by himself on the form of letters, they were later published in a book almost unknown and that the recent commemorations of the battle of La Lys, of which it presents terrible report, like few, completely ignored. These reports were complemented by other elements extracted from several works by the author. The present contribution is thus a tribute paid to him, in the fifty years of his passing and in the hundred years of the end of the bloody conflict in which he had a valiant participation, which earned him public recognition.

The correspondence received by J. Leite de Vasconcelos from thirteen archaeologists of Swedish, English, French, Italian, Swiss and German nationality, evidence the internationalization achieved by the Director of the Portuguese Ethnological Museum. The missives, almost all of them of the twentieth century, when the scientific prestige of Leite de Vasconcelos had reached the peak, deal with very different, generally relevant themes, sometimes resulting from visits made by the author himself to his correspondents, or, on the contrary, of visits made by them to Lisbon, thus enabling a direct knowledge. In fact, the mobility of Leite de Vasconcelos is well-known, which is in keeping with its declared love of traveling. These missives sometimes address scientific questions of first importance, contributing to the knowledge of the state of archaeological research in the respective countries, with international repercussions.

O General de Divisão Januário Correia de Almeida, Conde de S. Januário (Paço de Arcos, 31 de Março de 1827; Paço de Arcos, 27 de Maio de 1901) foi ilustre militar, administrador, engenheiro e diplomata, pertencente a um escol de notáveis portugueses do seu tempo que tanto prestigiaram e engrandeceram o País, boa parte deles hoje quase completamente esquecidos: tal a razão deste preito de homenagem à sua memória que agora se publica. Sumário: Apresentação Prefácio 1 – Razões de uma homenagem 2 – Januário Correia de Almeida e Oeiras 3 – Um militar de excepção 4 – O despertar para a causa pública: A missão no arquipélago de Cabo Verde (1857-1861) 5 – Uma afirmação de autoridade Como Governador-Geral da Índia Portuguesa 6 – Prudência e firmeza como Governador-Geral de Macau e Timor 7 – Uma missão de alto risco Como Ministro Plenipotenciário no Reino de Sião 8 – No Império do Sol Nascente 9 – O 1.º Presidente da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa 10 – Viajante, diplomata, arqueólogo e naturalista: a missão como Ministro Plenipotenciário às repúblicas sul-americanas em 1878/1879 11 – Colaboração com a Academia das Ciências de Lisboa 12 – Actuação na Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses 13 – Intervenção política 14 – Servidor da cultura e defensor da cidadania 15 – O fim de uma vida dedicada ao serviço do País Agradecimentos Referências Bibliográficas

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What is commonly called «Bell Beaker culture» corresponds to two distinct phenomena: – a process of rapid diffusion of some sign-objects (including the international goblet) within the late Neolithic (or Chalcolithic) populations. These vestiges bear witness to an individualistic ideology, particularly manifest in the funerary realm; – at a second stage, the emergence of local cultures, of limited geographical extension, which definitively adopted the codes of the previous phenomenon. They are therefore classic archaeological entities, known particularly through specific habitats, diversified ornate ceramics, commonware pottery, etc. The author considers a probable western origin of the maritime goblet, the original and emblematic marker of the phenomenon. He also wonders about the meaning of the «package» elements: sign-objects of general value or structural markers of the Bell Beaker culture? The presence of some of these elements out of the Beaker sphere as well as their perdurance during the Early Bronze Age do not systematically support their strictly Belll Beaker status.

L. Salanova (2000 a), taking up the “Classical Theory”, defended the origin of the maritime Beakers in the Tagus estuary, considering that this vase corresponded to the only pure Beaker production, named by her as the standard style. In this context, the importance of the published radiocarbon dates more recently published becomes evident, as it points to the actual antiquity of this production. This is particularly significant in the region in question, concerning the Hut FM of Leceia (CARDOSO, 1997-1998; 2014 a), which results confirm the emergence of the Beaker ceramics in this region around 2750 cal BC, a time when maritime Beakers already coexisted with regional productions. These results, along with the information produced by the DNA analysis carried out at the European level on Beaker populations, have confirmed the direct relation of these populations from their local predecessors (OLALDE et al., 2018). These are decisive arguments for the origin of the maritime vessels in the region of the Tagus estuary, which is the most important nucleus, on a European scale. From here, it expanded along the Atlantic coast, becoming an important receiving pole in Brittany, until it assumed residual values in more eastern regions, the Rhine valley and the Netherlands.

In this article we present the results of the analysis of the anthracological remains collected during excavations in the prehistoric settlement of Leceia (Oeiras, Portugal). It was possible to identify, through the microscopic observation the fracture surfaces of 148 specimens several species that were part of the region‘s arboreal cover during the 3rd millennium BC, such as Arbutus unedo, Pinus pinaster, Olea europea, Pistacia lentiscus, Quercus ilex / Q. coccifera, Quercus subg. Quercus, in addition to other taxa that were not identified at the specific level.

In this study we present the results of the archaeological excavations at the fortified Chalcolithic settlement of Outeiro Redondo, Sesimbra between 2005 and 2016, directed by the author.

In this work we present the results of the excavations that took place in Serra do Socorro during 2007 and 2008, specifically in the area adjacent to the Ermida. Recent phases of occupation of this space caused serious affectations in the stratigraphy, especially with regard to the oldest chronological periods. Nevertheless, it was possible to identify a relatively well conserved subcircular domestic structure that can be associated to the Bronze Age final phase, as well as a significant set of archaeological materials of that same period. The artifacts exhumed in these two campaigns are easily integrated into the repertoires Portuguese Extremadura Late Bronze Age, emphasizing a fragment with burnished decoration, a small set of scythe elements and a dagger.

344 Páginas

The open-area archaeological excavations at the 18th century Ludovice Palace, in the Bairro Alto quarter (Lisbon, Portugal) revealed four phases of human occupation. The oldest phase belongs to the Early Neolithic and comprise several dwelling features and one burial, alongside numerous pottery and lithic objects. Field-based geoarchaeological observations suggests that these remains are spread over na occupation surface which, once abandoned, seems to have underwent puddling, slaking and pedogenesis. A thick deposit covered these layers with abundant reworked prehistoric objects. These data significantly increase the contextual knowledge regarding previous findings of the Neolithic settlement of Bairro Alto both culturally and chronologically and widens the debate on the neolithization process of the portuguese Estremadura.

This paper presents the results of a study carried on a collection of 144 metal artefacts from the Early (ca. 2800-2600/2500 a.C.) and the Middle/Final Chalcolithic (ca. 2600/2500-2000 a.C.), found at the site of Leceia (Oeiras, Central Portugal) during the excavations conducted between 1983 and 2000. A systematised analysis of the collection was provided in order to enumerate the different typologies found in the site and to determine their chemical composition. From a typological point of view, a great diversity of artifacts was found, namely, punches, fish-hooks, flat axes, chisels, saws, ingots and foundry remnants. Elemental analysis, by X-ray Fluorescence, shows that the artefacts were made of copper, with a variable occurence of arsenic, nickel, silver, antimony, bismuth, lead and iron. In this paper, data is exposed and discussed within the regional early metallurgy.

The republication of a Late Bronze Age socketed ax with probably two rings collected in Leceia (Oeiras), justified the discussion about the origin and geographical distribution of this type of productions, characteristic of the Western area of the Iberian Peninsula.

In this article the authors present a set of several Iron Age artifacts, mostly unpublished, from Pragança settlement. Since the late nineteenth century, this collection has been part of the National Archaeological Museum and the artefacts were recovered during archaeological excavations conducted by the founder of the National Archaeological Museum, José Leite de Vasconcelos in this archaeological site. This site is very often associated with the fortified Chalcolitic settlements of Estremadura, but there is evidence of later occupations, as J. Leite de Vasconcelos had already pointed out. The authors present an important set of materials from the Iron Age, framing them in a regional perspective and circulation of goods, integrating this archaeological site in a network of contacts with the orientalizing and sideric world, that this set of artefacts demonstrate.