0015 - Beaker dagger

This copper dagger, typical of Bell Beaker assemblages, was collected at the surface of Perdigões in 2010, during the geophysical surveys. It was found in the central area of the enclosures, where there is the major concentration of beakers at the site.

(Photo copyrights A.C. Valera / Era Arqueologia)

Published here (contextual analysis) and here (metallurgical analysis).

0014 - Mini pots

These two very small pots were collected in the Late Neolithic contexts of Perdigões. They are rely small, and inside only a fingers head can enter. It is difficult to propose a functionality for such pots. Something resembling a modern toy status could be an explanation. But if we think that miniaturization, as form of scaling down objects to be handled in symbolic contexts (as it happens with animals and human figures), is one of the practices of the period, then these miniatures may be seen from a different perspective. Handled as thoughts in the mind, to quote (by memory) Tim Ingold about the small figurines.

(Photo copyright A.C. Valera / Era Arqueologia)

They were first published here.

0013 - Bell Beaker

Commemorating the winter solstice, certainly an important period at Perdigões enclosures, here is a Bell Beaker collected in the excavations of 2018. Geometric style, with the decoration impressed using a comb.

(photo copyright A.C. Valera / Era Arqueologia)

See more information about Perdigões Bell Beakers here.

0012 - Deer antler

Deer were animals with particular symbolism in Prehistory. They were depicted in rock art, in pottery decoration, were carved in small figurines and their antlers were used for tools but also in ritual depositions in funerary contexts or in other ceremonial practices. Most of these "ceremonial antlers" were collected after being naturally lost by the animals, showing just the base and not the parts of the skull where they were attached, meaning that they do not result from hunting. That is the case of this antler from an adult deer that was deposited in Tomb 2 of Perdigões, in an assemblage of human bones. This assemblage is dated from the third quarter of the 3rd millennium BC.

(Photo copyright A.C. Valera / Era Arqueologia S.A.)

For more information see here.

0011 - Phalanx and beads

This horse phalanx was carved and polished to be transformed in a anthropomorphic figure. It was deposited with cremated human remains in Pit 40. It might have been close to a necklace, because several beads made of shell remained attached by concretions. Is dated from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC.

(Photo copyright A.C. Valera / Era Arqueologia)

0010 - Ivory

Ivory is usually abundant in Perdigões Chalcolithic tombs. Many and diversified objects were collected in the tholos type tomb 1 and tomb 2 and in the pits with secondary depositions of human cremated remains. But there, also fragments of tusks were recovered, showing that ivory raw material was also circulating and arriving to Perdigões and not just finished objects.
Some of this ivory was analyzed and the provenance is the African Bush Elephant  (Loxodonta africana).

This fragment of tusk is from Pit 40, a major feature with the deposition of human cremated remains, dated from the middle 3rd millennium BC.

For more information see publication here.

0009 - Local object exogenous raw material

That is the case of the staff collected in Tomb 1 of Perdigões. Staffs are an  ideotechnic object present in the inner Alentejo megalithic tradition. This exemplar of Perdigões, made of ivory and dated from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, combines a regional object with an exogenous raw material. This combination captures,in a way, the spirit of times of the 3rd millennium BC, when local and regional areas were integrated in wide networks of social interaction. And this is also seen in the decoration of this peace, that resembles the patterns that can be observed in other materials of the period. Mixtures. A concept that can very well characterize these times of prime of the Neolithic way in the Southwest Iberia.