Perdigões Archaeological Complex
In January 2019, following a proposal by ERA-Arqueologia, the Perdigões Archaeological Complex was classified by the Portuguese State as a National Monument. This event culminates 22 years of the Perdigões Archaeological Research Programme, coordinated by ERA-Arqueologia. Perdigões is ERA's first project, which began in 1997 and is still ongoing!
Perdigões is a large archaeological complex covering an area of around 20 ha, comprised of several large ditched enclosures (structures dug into the rock). It includes a necropolis area (cemeteries) and a cromlech or ceremonial megalithic enclosure defined by several menhirs, whose foundation dates back to the Middle Neolithic (around 5500 years ago), extending its existence until the beginning of the Bronze Age (around 4000 years ago), representing 1,500 years of history. The site would have played a crucial role for the communities that inhabited the area in Recent Prehistory and would probably have been a place where people gathered, similar to a sanctuary, to practise ritual ceremonies, some related to the cult of the dead and ancestors. We have been uncovering the traces of these practices.
Over the past twenty years, extensive fieldwork has been carried out, including dozens of archaeological excavation campaigns, laboratory work, papers presented at numerous national and international congresses and lectures at various Portuguese and foreign universities. Approximately sixty articles were published in specialist journals, and master's and doctoral theses have been completed or are currently in progress regarding Perdigões.
Over the years, the Perdigões Global Research Program, led by ERA, has coordinated several specific projects developed in an integrated manner by various institutions, such as ERA, the universities of Algarve, Coimbra and Malaga, the German Archaeological Institute, the Igespar Archaeosciences Laboratory and the Nuclear and Technological Institute.
The excavations welcomed specialists and students from Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French and Austrian universities.
The first international workshop on ditched enclosures occurred around Perdigões in 2006 and the second in 2016, with the support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Esporão S.A. and the Millennium BCP Foundation.
The ongoing research, coordinated by the Archaeological Research Centre of ERA Arqueologia, has been essentially funded by ERA, Esporão and the Foundation for Science and Technology. We have been working in several areas, including negative structures such as ditches or pits, one of the most significant aspects being the presence of multiple funerary contexts. Their diversity is remarkable, including tombs from secondary inhumations, primary inhumations or deposits of human cremations dating back some 4,500 years. The latter funerary practices are considered unusual, and their discovery raises interesting questions about changing views of the world and human beings.
Associated with these contexts of human cremations, a remarkable set of anthropomorphic ivory statuettes of notable naturalism and aesthetic beauty, known in other contexts in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, appeared for the first time in Portugal. Their meaning is a matter of debate among specialists, and they may represent deities, people or specific social statuses, identities or kinship groups.
The continued duration of the Perdigões research, the internationalisation it has achieved and the public awareness concerns that have always accompanied it, of which the exhibition in the medieval tower of Herdade do Esporão is a milestone, have made it one of the most important prehistoric archaeology projects in Portugal, recognized by the magazine Almadan in the issue dedicated to the notable projects of Portuguese Archaeology. The status achieved also allows it to enjoy a high level of international prestige, enabling it to continue expanding its network of institutional collaborations and to be at the forefront of research into this archaeological phenomenon.