Tell me what you see: Late deposition of an atypical metallic artefact in Perdigões

Abstract

This work presents the deposition of a deformed metallic piece in the re-cutting of Ditch 7 in the Complex of Ditched enclosures of Perdigões. The filling of this reopening was done with the accumulation of a great set of stones, on top of which this elongated and serrated metal element of atypical typology was identified.This piece, due to the absence of direct parallels in the national territory, allows to discuss not only typological and terminological questions, in face of its formal distance from the Palmela Points/arrowheads or the tanged daggers. At the same time allows to think about its biography (presence of a serrated edge and distortion), contextual and chronological insertion, being noted a recurrence of certain types of late depositions in Perdigões, as is the case of this re-cutting in Ditch 7, dated from the third quarter of the 3rd millennium BC.

Monumentalidad en madera: una aproximación preliminar a los círculos de madera de la Prehistoria Tardía en el Sur de Portugal

“…by a large oval stone cairn with a stone-free centre (figures 3B and 4B). Another smaller stone cairn was built in the northern limits of the excavated area, covering a pit containing animal remains, possibly related to a feasting episode (Basílio and Cabaço, 2019), that has been dated to the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC. So, the timber circle seems to initiate a highly complex and diversified sequence of occupation in the central area of the Perdigões enclosure, where the ceremonial and the ritualized have always been present.…”