0025 - Almerinse/Cruciforme figurines

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

These figurines are classified in Portuguese archaeological literature as "Almeriense idols". In the Spanish one they are called "cruciformes", and they were thought to be of Chalcolithic origin (that is, from the 3rd millennium BC).

At Perdigões, though, they occur in a ditch deposition that is dated from the Late Neolithic (Ditch 12), between 3300 - 3100 cal BC. It is, so far, the oldest dated (in absolute terms) context where these figures appear in Iberia. Important, because it clearly shows that the 3rd millennium social trajectory, namely in terms of iconography and ideology, started in the second half of the 4th millennium BC. A frontier between the Late Neolithic and the Chalcolithic that, in terms of social trajectories, just doesn't make sense anymore, at least in the Iberian Southwest.

Published here.

0027 - Integrality

Many archaeological studies are dealing with the issues of fragmentation and its social roles in the context of Neolithic and Chalcolithic societies (for a Portuguese recent perspective see here). But fragmentation cannot be approach apart from its opposite, "integrality", for the two oppositions are a duality: they implicate each other.

That we can see in the anthropomorphic figurines present in the deposition of cremated remains in Perdigões central area. If the majority of figurines are burned and broken in peaces, just like the human remains, revealing the intention of fragmentation and dilution of the unity of the body, the deposition of this figurine, just next to the cremated remains, shows the importance conceded to completeness, establishing a dialogue between part / whole: the broken leg was intentionally completed with a fragment of a human calcined bone.

The publication of this context and its discussion can be found here.

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