Rui Mataloto

O presente artigo visa a publicação de uma nova estela da Idade do Bronze e as circunstâncias do seu achado, no concelho de Castro Verde. Esta nova estela diademada ou de toucado surge em plena região das estelas de tipo Alentejano, a par das estelas com escrita do Sudoeste, enquadrando-se então numa região com longa tradição destes marcadores de paisagem.

Abstract

The south-western Iberian stelae from the Final Bronze Age (FBA) and Early Iron Age (EIA) have long been the centre of archaeological interest. These monuments show representations of human and animal figures, objects such as weapons, ornaments and chariots. Moreover, they provide insights into prehistoric stone working and sculpting techniques. On the downside, petrological studies of the rocks and consequent reflections on suitable tools are still the exception. Due to the lack of analysis and technological studies, this research will put emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach involving petrographic and metallurgic analyses, complemented by experimental archaeology.

Firstly, an accurate lithological determination of stelae from Capilla (Spain) has been established with petrographic methods. According to the results, two slabs for replications of stelae were obtained from the identified mono-mineral quartz-sandstone (“quartzite”) outcrop. The experiment involved the trial of chisels made from all expedient materials that were available in the FBA-EIA by a professional stonemason. Considering that such extremely hard rocks require robust tools for carving, a long ignored iron chisel from the FBA site of Rocha do Vigio (Portugal) was studied with metallography and exposed heterogeneous, however surprisingly high-carbon steel. The analysed rocks are amongst the hardest that can be used for sculpting, and in the course of the experiment, bronze and lithic tools could be discarded. The only tool that showed an effect was the replication of the steel chisel from Rocha do Vigio with a hardened edge. The distinct work traces were compared to the original monuments. We hypothesize that the production of carbon steel as well as its hardening were possibly already known at the FBA-EIA transition in Iberia. Hence, only the access to iron technology allowed for the making of stelae from the lithotypes that were frequently used in the Zújar basin around the municipality of Capilla.

Gonçalves, D.; Campanacho, V.; Thompson, T.; Mataloto, R. In press. The weight of the matter: examining the potential of skeletal weight for the bioarchaeological analysis of cremation at the Iron Age necropolis of Tera (Portugal). In: Thompson, T. (Ed.). The Archaeology of cremation: Burned human remains in funerary studies. Oxbow Books.

co-authored with Rui Mataloto.
O “dólmen furado” da Candieira (Código Nacional de Sítio - 609) foi dado a conhecer pelo ilustre investigador eborense, Gabriel Pereira (1879), na sequência das suas deambulações arqueológicas nos arredores de Évora, destacando inicialmente esta inusitada anta, com um orifício no esteio de cabeceira, no Universo Illustrado (Pereira, 1877). Porém, a notícia setecentista de antas nas proximidades do Convento de São Paulo, na Serra d’Ossa (Frei Martinho de S. Paulo cit in Frei Henrique de Santo António, 1745: 82), coloca a possibilidade de uma delas lhe corresponder. Finalmente, na listagem de antas de Carlos Ribeiro (provavelmente de meados do século 19), por ele ou pelos seus colectores registada, são indicadas coordenadas próximas às da Candieira (Neto, 1976-77).

Symbols for the dead in spaces of the living? Some remarks about the presence of engraved schist plaques in settlements in North Alentejo, in the context of Southwest Iberia.

As a typical votive artefact of the megalithic communities of the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic in Southwest Iberia, the engraved schist plaques can be found mainly in funerary contexts during the last centuries of the 4th millennium and the firsts of the 3rd millennium BCE. However, these artefacts are also present in residential spaces, being found in open settlements, fortified settlements and ditched enclosures, with radiocarbon dates that fall between the last quarter of the 4th millennium and the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE. Using several sites of the region of North Alentejo as case studies, the authors intend to put forward some interpretive lines about the presence of these artefacts in residential contexts – debating questions such as the existence of actual production areas within the settlement space (workshops) or the recovery and reintroduction of these artefacts in residential areas (as relics, understood in the context of new symbolic concepts), possibly recovered during the reuse of megalithic monuments, a practice widely known in the Southwest Iberia throughout the whole 3rd millennium and even in the 2nd millennium BCE.