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Centre for Archaeology - University of Lisbon
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Formation processes, fire use, and patterns of human occupation across the Middle Palaeolithic (MIS 5a-5b) of Gruta da Oliveira (Almonda karst system, Torres Novas, Portugal)
Publication . Angelucci, Diego E.; Nabais, Mariana; Zilhão, João
Gruta da Oliveira features a c. 13 m-thick infilling that includes a c. 6.5 m-thick archaeological deposit (the “Middle Palaeolithic sequence” complex), which Bayesian modelling of available dating results places in MIS 5a (layers 7–14) and MIS 5b (layers 15–25), c. 71,000–93,000 years ago. The accumulation primarily consists of sediment washed in from the slope through gravitational processes and surface dynamics. The coarse fraction derives from weathering of the cave’s limestone bedrock. Tectonic activity and structural instability caused the erosional retreat of the scarp face, explaining the large, roof-collapsed rock masses found through the stratification. The changes in deposition and diagenesis observed across the archaeological sequence are minor and primarily controlled by local factors and the impact of humans and other biological agents. Pulses of stadial accumulation—reflected in the composition of the assemblages of hunted ungulates, mostly open-country and rocky terrain taxa (rhino, horse, ibex)—alternate with interstadial hiatuses—during which carbonate crusts and flowstone formed. Humans were active at the cave throughout, but occupation was intermittent, which allowed for limited usage by carnivores when people visited less frequently. During the accumulation of layers 15–25 (c. 85,000–93,000 years ago), the carnivore guild was dominated by wolf and lion, while brown bear and lynx predominate in layers 7–14 (c. 71,000–78,000 years ago). In the excavated areas, conditions for residential use were optimal during the accumulation of layers 20–22 (c. 90,000–92,000 years ago) and 14 (c. 76,000–78,000 years ago), which yielded dense, hearth-focused scatters of stone tools and burnt bones. The latter are ubiquitous, adding to the growing body of evidence that Middle Palaeolithic Neandertals used fire in regular, consistent manner. The patterns of site usage revealed at Gruta da Oliveira are no different from those observed 50,000 years later in comparable early Upper Palaeolithic and Solutrean cave sites of central Portugal.
Blank predetermination in the Iberian Acheulean. Insight from the cleaver on flake assemblage of Casal do Azemel site (Leiria, Portugal) by a Geometric Morphometric approach
Publication . Ferreira, Carlos; Méndez-Quintas, Eduardo; Cunha-Ribeiro, João Pedro
Over the last decades, the increase of data available for the study of the archaeological topic in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Pleistocene has favoured the understanding of the technological trends of the Iberian Acheulean assemblages. These have features of a Large Flake Acheulean (LFA), displaying, among other traits, a significant presence of cleavers on flake, a specific tool type that is of great cultural and technological value. Particularly, these artefacts are privileged to discuss the importance of blank predetermination in the Acheulean techno-complex. Following this reason, in the present work we aimed to explore this topic through the 2D Geometric Morphometric Analysis of the cleaver on flake assemblage from Casal do Azemel (Leiria, Portugal), an example of a paradigmatic Iberian Acheulean site that has one of the largest collections of this type of tools in Western Europe.
The results obtained revealed that no significant morphological differences were found according to the technological solutions applied to the acquisition of the blank and its secondary transformation. Considering that in most of the cases these tools display a low degree of secondary transformation, these data suggest that underlying the production of Casal do Azemel’s cleaver on flake assemblage was not only a technological and cognitive flexibility (given its typological composition), but also a conceptual, structural, and morphological standardisation. These observations allowed us to discuss the significance of blank predetermination in the Acheulean, implying the existence of greatly structured technical and cognitive prerequisites.
Felicitas Iulia Olisipo
Publication . Fabião, Carlos
The paper presents a brief synthesis on how was built the actual knowledge about the Roman town of Felicitas Iulia Olisipo, underneath modern Lisbon (Portugal). An Atlantic city located in the mouth of Tagus River, and a major port of Lusitania.
Felicitas Iulia Olisipo was first just one town name in classical literature. A place of some relevant historical events described by Strabo and also a place of mirabilia, according to Pliny the Elder. Was also a place name inscribed in some Latin epigraphs recorded by scholars. From the actual Ancient Roman town, just the notice of one Roman dam was mentioned, in the context of all the studies related to the new water supply system that should be done to Lisbon. Documents and studies about the water supply system, from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries always put on the table the hypothesis of following the ancient Roman piping. It looks like the Roman aqueduct was still visible in those times, at least in some of its sections.
After the great 1755 earthquake, the reconstruction of the town revealed a couple of monumental public buildings. First, a cryptoporticus that now we know was the substructure of the monumental Bath house of the Port, then another great public baths, the so called thermae cassiorum, from an epigraph found there; and, at the end, the theatre. Despite some intents from an Italian Architect to preserve in situ the theatre ruins, all three monuments were not preserved. On one hand, due to the necessity of building the new town of Lisbon, on the other hand, for all the political instability of the early Nineteenth Century (the Napoleonic invasions and the displacement of the Portuguese crown to Brazil, then the civil war between Liberals and Absolutists). These discoveries related to the rebuilding of the town are important for the knowledge of Felicitas Iulia Olisipo major public buildings, but it is rather strange why no private houses with stucco paintings and mosaics and neither the fish salted tanks related to the fish processing factories, archaeological structures that we now know are very frequent at the down town, were noticed and recorded during the huge process of reconstruction. It looks they didn’t attracted the scholars attention.
From the second half of Nineteenth Century to de end of Twentieth Century, few attention or protection was payed to the Roman town. Some rescue excavations were done: at a large necropolis and at some remains of the circus found during the works to set the first Metro network or the Roman theatre once again discovered, but no actual policy for archaeological remains preservation was settled. In this period, many studies were published on the history of Lisbon, some with relevant interest to the better understanding of the Roman town, but they deal chiefly with already published information, not searching nor using new fresh data. At the end of the Twentieth Century, when Lisbon was the European Cultural Capital (1994), a great exhibition done, named “Subterraneous Lisbon”, was important to put the Archaeological remains underneath the modern town on the media agenda and in full display to the so called general public, but it was also a clear proof of the few progresses in the Roman town knowledge all over de Twentieth Century, as the exhibition exposes chiefly what was already known at the beginning of the Century, with no relevant fresh information besides the recognition of the relevant fish processing (salsamenta) industry of Felicitas Iulia Olisipo.
In the last decades, the changing in Portuguese archaeological activity legislation produced a major change. We pass from some accidental rescue excavations to contract excavations to be done previous to any subsoil intervention. We pass also from amateur and academic archaeology to professional archaeology. Many different agents in many different conditions and situations worked from then on in Lisbon. The major renewal of the historic buildings, increased chiefly by touristic demand, produced a huge amount of new excavations. Nowadays the Roman town is better known day by day by the several urban excavation done in the context of
urban rehabilitation. Unfortunately, excavations are much more than the recommended publication of the results and there is some lack of truly historical knowledge coming from all that activity. We have now much more dots related to Roman occupation in the modern urban map, but those dots didn’t mean truly information about the historical sequences of building / transformations / abandonment, what we expect to know from any archaeological excavation.
In the last years Lisbon municipality was aware of the problem and creates a new institution, the Centro de Arqueologia de Lisboa (CAL), aiming to centralize and managed the huge amount of new information generated by the new excavation dynamics. The CAL launch a new cycle of Conferences on Lisbon Archaeology (two of them already done and a third one in preparation) with the aim of sharing information about the progresses of urban archaeology (not just about the Roman period, but all periods considered). It was launched a research / divulgation Project, Lisboa Romana / Felicitas Iulia Olisipo with a coherent program of publication and dissemination of the knowledge on the Roman town. So, we may be optimists about the future of the knowledge of the many towns underneath the modern Lisbon, including Felicitas Iulia Olisipo.
Organization of residential space, site function variability, and seasonality of activities among MIS 5 Iberian Neandertals
Publication . Deschamps, Marianne; Martín-Lerma, Ignacio; Linares-Matas, Gonzalo; Zilhão, João
Whether ethnoarcheological models of hunter-gatherer mobility, landscape use, and structuration of the inhabited space are relevant to the archeology of Neandertals and the Middle Paleolithic remains controversial. The thin lenses of hearth-associated stone tools and faunal remains excavated in sub-complex AS5 of Cueva Anton (Murcia, Spain) significantly advance these debates. Dated to 77.8-85.1 ka, these living floors are interstratified in river-accumulated sands and were buried shortly after abandonment by low-energy inundation events, with minimal disturbance and negligible palimpsest formation. Stone tools were made and ergonomically modified to fit tasks; their spatial distributions and use-wear reveal hearth-focused activities and a division of the inhabited space into resting and working areas. Site function varied with season of the year: units III-i/j1 and III-i/j2-3 record winter visits focused on filleting and hide processing, while woodworking predominated in unit III-b/d, which subsumes visits to the site over the course of at least one winter, one spring, and one summer. These snapshots of Neandertal behavior match expectations derived from the ethnographic and Upper Paleolithic records for the lifeways of hunter-gatherers inhabiting temperate regions with a markedly seasonal climate.
Em busca da colecção perdida (1): Vila Nova de São Pedro no Museu Municipal de Vila Franca de Xira
Publication . Neves, César; Arnaud, José Morais; Martins, Andrea; Diniz, Mariana
Desde 2016 que Vila Nova de São Pedro corresponde à temática central do projecto VNSP 3000, que procura reunir e analisar toda a informação relacionada com este sítio. Além do Museu Arqueológico do Carmo (MAC), tem-se vindo a contactar instituições que contam, nos seus acervos, com espólio arqueológico proveniente deste povoado Calcolítico. Perante estas colecções, tem sido adoptada a mesma metodologia usada no conjunto do MAC: inventariar; registar.
Entre os numerosos artefactos arqueológicos à guarda do Museu Municipal de Vila Franca de Xira, encontra-se uma pequena colecção proveniente de Vila Nova de São Pedro. Contabilizaram-se 149 elementos divididos entre Indústria Lítica (pedra lascada e pedra polida/afeiçoada) e Cerâmica. O destaque vai para o conjunto de pedra polida e afeiçoada, assim como para os pesos de tear em cerâmica.
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Entidade financiadora
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
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6817 - DCRRNI ID
Número da atribuição
UIDB/00698/2020