Ritual and Death in Prehistoric Perdigões - Institute for Field Research


Location: Reguengos de Monsaraz, Portugal

Season: 
June 23, 2019 to July 27, 2019

Application Deadline: 
Friday, April 5, 2019

Deadline Type: 
Rolling

Website: 
https://ifrglobal.org/program/portugal-perdigoes/

Flyer: PDF icon syllabus-portugal-perdigoes-2019.pdf

Program Type

Field school

RPA certified

no

Affiliation:

Algarve University, ERA Arqueologia, Connecticut College, Institute for Field Research

Project Director:

Dr. António Valera, Era Arqueologia; Dr. Lucy Shaw Evangelista

Project Description

Picture yourself at the center of the prehistoric world – in a place that might have been a space for socialization, connection to the sacred, where the human body was treated in surprising and diversified ways. Perdigões is 16-hectare site with many concentric ditched enclosures built and inhabited for about 1,500 years, between 3400 and 2000 B.C. It lies in a natural amphitheater, open to the East, with entrances aligned to the rising sun at summer and winter solstices. The site was first identified in the 1980’s and has been the subject of continuous research since 1998. It is one the most important sites in the Iberian Peninsula for research about the development of social complexity in Neolithic Europe. Our research questions are aimed at better understanding the chronology of this complex site and characterizing the associated social practices, namely the structured depositions in pits and ditches, funerary practices, social interaction, and patterns of mobility. These are investigated using a multidisciplinary approach, congregating methods from bioanthropology, archaeometry, isotopic studies, zooarchaeology, geophysics, and archaeological studies of material culture and architecture.

The 2019 research/fieldwork goals are to excavate positive and negative structures (funerary and non-funerary), ideally in the central area of Perdigões where we will likely find abundant faunal, archaeological, and human remains. In addition to excavation methods, students will learn register techniques applied to human remains and cleaning and identifying human bones as well as methods for estimation of age at death, sex diagnosis, and minimum number of recovered individuals.

Period(s) of Occupation: Neolithic Europe

Project size: 
1-24 participants

Minimum Length of Stay for Volunteers: Participants are required to stay for the full duration of the field school.

Minimum age: 
18

Experience required: 
No prior experience required.

Room and Board Arrangements

Students will be accommodated in small houses (about 2-3 rooms each) in Telheiro (Reguengos de Monsaraz), a small town near Perdigões. Each house has a kitchen, living room, and one bathroom. Shared rooms hold a maximum of 2 people. The houses will be cleaned twice a week. It is the students’ responsibility to maintain and clean the house for the rest of the week. Students will be taken by car to the site daily.

Lunch and dinner will be provided. Breakfast is the students’ responsibility. Food and other amenities can be purchased at local stores. Three supermarkets are about a 15 minutes ride from Telheiro. Also, the restaurant Sem Fim is at a 5-minute walking distance from the houses.

Cost: 
Room and Board is included in the tuition for this program.

Academic Credit

Name of institution offering credit: 
Connecticut College
Number of credits offered 8 Semester Credits
Tuition: 
$4,320

Location

Contact Information
Institute for Field Research
2999 Overland Ave. Suite 103
Los Angeles
California
United States
90064
info@ifrglobal.org
Telephone: 
14242091173100
Recommended Bibliography: 

VALERA, A.C., SILVA, A.M., CUNHA, C. and EVANGELISTA, L. (2014), "Funerary practices and body manipulation at Neolithic and Chalcolithic Perdigões ditched enclosures (South Portugal)" in A.C. Valera ed. Recent Prehistoric Enclosures and Funerary Practices in Europe, BAR, International Series 2676: 37- 57.

https://www.academia.edu/9813771/Funerary_practices_and_body_manipulations_at_Neolithic_and_  Chalcolithic_Perdig%C3%B5es_ditched_enclosures_South_Portugal_

VALERA, A.C.; SILVA, A.M. and MÁRQUEZ ROMERO, J.E. (2014), “The temporality of Perdigões enclosures: absolute chronology of the structures and social practices”, SPAL, 23, p. 11-16.  http://institucional.us.es/revistas/spal/23/art_1.pdf

VALERA, A.C. (2015), “Social change in the late 3rd millennium BC in Portugal: the twilight of enclosures”. In MELLER, H.; RISCH, R.; JUNG, R.; ARZ, H. eds - 2200 BC – Ein Klimasturz als Ursache für den Zerfall der Alten Welt? 2200 BC – A climatic breakdown as a cause for the collapse of the old world. 7th Archaeological Conference of Central Germany October 23-26, 2013 in Halle (Saale): 409 –427.  https://www.academia.edu/18859497/Social_change_in_the_late_3rd_millennium_BC_in_Portugal_Th  e_twilight_of_enclosures

RECOMMENDED READINGS

BARTELHEIN, M., P. BUENO RAMÍREZ, M. KUNST (eds.) (2017), “Key resources and socio-cultural developments in the Iberian Chalcolithic”, RessourcenKulturen, Nº6, Tübingen, pp. 7-21.  http://repositorio.ul.pt/bitstream/10451/31554/1/rk_SFB_1070.pdf

CRUZ BERROCAL, M., L. GARCÍA SANJUÁN, A. GILMAN (eds.) (2013), “The Prehistory of Iberia. Debating early social stratification and the State”, Oxon, Routledge, pp. 10-28.

VALERA, A.C. (2017) – “The ‘Exogenous’ at Perdigões Approaching Interaction in the Late 4th and 3rd Millennium BC in Southwest Iberia”, In BARTLHEIM, M.; BUENO RAMÍREZ, P.; KUNST, M. – Key resources and sociocultural developments in the Iberian Chalcolithic, p. 201-224.  https://www.academia.edu/35332058/The_Exogenous_at_Perdig%C3%B5es_Approaching_Interaction_  in_the_Late_4th_and_3rd_Millennium_BC_in_Southwest_Iberia

VALERA, A.C., EVANGELISTA, L. and CASTANHEIRA, P. (2014), "Zoomorphic figurines and the problem of Human-Animal relationship in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Southwest Iberia", Menga, Revista de Prehistoria de Andaluzia, 5:, p. 15-33.  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271191726_Zoomorphic_Figurines_and_the_Problem_of_H  uman-Animal_Relationship_in_the_Neolithic_and_Chalcolithic_Southwest_Iberia

VALERA, A.C., SCHUHMACHER, T.X., BANERJEE, A. (2015), “Ivory in the Chalcolithic enclosure of Perdigões (South Portugal): the social role of an exotic raw material”, World Archaeology.  http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00438243.2015.1014571

VALERA, A.C. and EVANGELISTA, L.S. (2014), "Anthropomorphic figurines at Perdigões enclosure: naturalism, body proportion and canonical posture as forms of ideological language", Journal of European Archaeology, 17, 2, p. 286-300.  http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1461957114Y.0000000057?journalCode=yeja20

VALERA, A.C. (2016), “Ditched enclosures and the ideologies of death in the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic South Portugal”, In ARD, V.; PILLOT, L. – Giants in the Landscape: Monumentality and Territories in the European Neolithic. Archaeopress Archaeology: 69-84.  https://www.academia.edu/23692737/Ditched_enclosures_and_the_ideologies_of_death_in_the_Late

_Neolithic_and_Chalcolithic_South_Portugal

VALERA, A.C., SIMÃO, I., NUNES, T., PEREIRO, T. DO, COSTA, C. (2017), “Neolithic ditched enclosures in Southern Portugal (4th Millennium BC): new data and new perspectives”, Estudos do Quaternário, 17, APEQ, Braga, 2017, p. 57-76. http://www.apeq.pt/ojs/index.php/apeq

WHITTLE, A. (2014), “The times and timings of enclosures--2. In: A.C. Valera ed., “Recent Prehistoric enclosures and funerary practices in Europe”, BAR, International Series 2676, pp. 1-12.