Perdigões, Portugal

Project Description.

This project aims to appraise the intensity and the social, economic and ideological role of mobility and interaction in Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic societies in South Portugal expressed in the development of complex aggregation centers. For the purpose of this research, a specific archaeological site, dated from the 4th and 3rd millennium BC was selected for its adequacy to deal with the issue: Perdigões (Reguengos de Monsaraz, Évora). This approach to mobility and interaction will be focused in the physical and geographical movement of people, animals and artifacts, by establishing local and exogenous provenances. It is aimed to establish a regional and transregional network of relations and characterize the social, economic and ideological role that a large ditched enclosure like Perdigões played in it. Mobility and interaction will be established through isotopic analyses of 87Sr/86Sr (for human and cattle), paleo diets (for humans, through isotopic analysis of delta13C and delta15N), archaeometric studies of specific artifacts and raw materials (ivory materials, cinnabar, large flint blades, beads, pottery, copper objects) and identification of foreign faunal species (namely mollusks), as well as through more traditional typological approaches to material culture.