Publicações VII

Editado em finais de 2008.
Autor: Victor S. Gonçalves
Edição: Câmara Municipal de Cascais
Abstract:
"The Porto Covo and the Poço Velho prehistoric caves (Cascais County), were excavated in January and February 1879, both part of the Portuguese strategy for the Congrès International d`Anthropologie et d`Archéologie Préhistoriques, IX éme Session, which was to be held in Lisbon the following year. It was excavated by António Mendes, by order of Carlos Ribeiro.
In this book we will show not only bones and pottery, but also an extraordinary document, previously unknown: António Mendes`report on the distribution of tasks among the workers, allowing us, for the first time, to understand how an archaeological excavation was carried out in Portugal in the last quarter of the 19th century (.../...)
The Porto Covo cave was certainly, and without a shadow of a doubt, a burial chamber...a small burial chamber containing seven individuals. It is certain that were three women and two children (both less than five years of age) and almost certainly two men.
Its small size and its isolation migth permit the conclusion that this was an occasional burial chamber for very small and unstable communities, as revealed by the chronology of the bones.
The connection of these groups to the land can also be read through the symbology - the importance given to the axe, which cuts the trees, and to the adze, which cleans the branches from the trunks, removes the bark and prepares them for various functions, for construction or preparation of the wood for combustion.
Radiocarbon dating of six samples permitted the identification of three different periods of occupation, two in the 4th millennium and one in the 3rd, cal BC"

V.S.Gonçalves: 202