Pit sites and other characteristic elements of the Final Neolithic landscapes persisted. However, certain aspects of the cultural landscapes appear to dramatically change at the beginning of the Copper Age period. In particular, the 3rd millennium cal BC saw the advent of new architectural principles in the form of stone-walled enclosures, with ‘towers’ and ‘bastion-like’ features, akin to the well-known south-eastern site of Los Millares (e.g. Molina *et al.* 2004; Jorge 1994). Restricted geographically largely to the Iberian *Atlantic Façade* and the Southeast, stone-walled enclosures include what appear to be circular houses and other domestic features. The geographical distributions of ditched and walled enclosures partially overlap each other. In the absence of detailed chronologies, it is commonly assumed that they somehow shared the same spaces in certain areas of the Iberian Peninsula during these centuries.

At some point during the 3rd millennium BC, circular, stone-based houses, and stone masonry walls similar to those typical of the aforementioned walled enclosures, including towers and bastion-like features, began to appear at some of the ‘mega’ ditched enclosures (e.g. Alcalar or Marroquíes Bajos), although their chronology and therefore their relationship with ditches and pits often remain unclear. Metal artefacts, amongst other novel material culture items, appear on the archaeological record corresponding to this period.

The practice of deposition of human bones, body parts or complete skeletons in pits not only continued but increased, especially at, but not limited to, the ‘mega’ enclosures. Likewise, some sites saw the deposition of human remains in ditches. In both cases, and looking at the available data, there does not appear to be any kind of normalisation, and the diversity of sex and age distributions, anatomical conditions of the bodies, positions, treatment of the bones and accompanying objects, if any, is considerable (see e.g. Márquez-Romero and Jiménez-Jáimez 2010: 213-219; Valera 2012b). At least at some sites, these practices remained numerically less important than burials in tombs (again, see for example Rodrigues 2014 for Porto Torrão), but more data is needed to sustain this inference at a more general level (see e.g. García Sanjuán and Díaz-Zorita Bonilla 2013 for Valencina; and Valera, this volume, for Perdigões).

As regards normalised burials, a ‘second megalithic tradition’ featuring corbelled dome tombs, normally with a corridor and a circular chamber, called *tholoi*, materialised (García Sanjuán 2009: 18). At the same time, rock-cut tombs (hypogea) remained to be constructed, whilst the use and reuse of old mortuary monuments continued (Boaventura 2011). More importantly for the objectives of this paper, in Southern Iberia some of these forms of burials (tholoi, hypogea) formed necropolises nearby Chalcolithic ditched enclosures, or viceversa. Intra-site temporality is a big issue here: the contemporaneity of most of these features remains undemonstrated, and things that are close in space today not necessarily were close in time in the past. If the model proposed by Whittle *et al.* (2011) for Early Neolithic Britain is any indication, it is unlikely that Iberian ditched enclosures were constructed without a break for almost 1500 years, from the Final Neolithic to the Late Chalcolithic; instead, short bursts of building activity might have alternated with periods of relative inactivity on that front. If that is true also in Southern Iberia, the funerary structures mentioned above could have been built in-between episodes of ditch-digging. However, the British model does not necessarily apply to Southern Iberia as is, and Iberian chronologies do not allow yet to make inferences of that nature. Moreover, the proximity of tombs and ditched enclosures at some sites, regardless of the diachronic or synchronic character of their relationship, is a novelty of the period that deserves attention in itself, particularly when compared to the Final Neolithic.

Another important aspect of this is the restricted nature of the phenomenon. There are about 30 Chalcolithic ditched sites in Southern Iberia – counting just once the sites that have multiple Copper Age ditches such as Perdigões or La Pijotilla –, and many more are probable. Of those, only 6, maybe 7, have Chalcolithic necropolises in their proximity: La Pijotilla, Perdigões, Porto Torrão, Alcalar, Valencina de la Concepción, Marroquíes Bajos (see references above) and perhaps Carmona (Seville, Spain), where, according to several sources, a *tholos* was found in the 19th century (Conlin

<figure><img src="image_162.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_163.png" /></figure>

FIGURE 3. FLOOR PLAN OF LA PIJOTILLA (BADAJOZ) DITCHED ENCLOSURE, SPLIT INTO TWO HALVES BY A STREAM. THE NECROPOLIS, FEATURING SEVERAL THOLOI AND SOME SIMPLER FORMS, IS TODAY WITHIN THE ENCLOSED AREA, ALTHOUGH THE TEMPORALITY OF THE OUTER DITCH REMAINS UNCLEAR (MODIFIED FROM HURTADO 1999, FIG. 4). THIS ILLUSTRATES THE MUCH CLOSER CONNECTIONS BETWEEN (SOME) DITCHED ENCLOSURES AND NECROPOLISES IN THE SOUTHERN IBERIAN COPPER AGE (3RD MILLENNIUM CAL BC).

2003: 87-88). Necropolises nearby Southern Iberian ditched enclosures are, therefore, unusual, even in the Chalcolithic. Importantly, the sites with clusters of tombs are also the largest and the ones which possess the most monumental features (ditches and pits) in the region. In other words, as far as Southern Iberian Copper Age ditched enclosures is concerned, only the ‘mega-sites’ were accompanied by necropolises.

Although simpler forms exist, the necropolises at the Copper Age ‘mega-sites’ commonly comprise tholoi and hypogea and usually contain collective inhumations. In a few instances, the outer ditch was constructed in such a way to include some pre-existing tombs in the enclosed area; this occurs at Perdigões (Valera *et al*. 2014: 20-21) and probably La Pijotilla (Hurtado 1986) (Fig. 3), although the chronology of the outer circuit at the latter is less certain. By contrast, at Valencina de la Concepción (Cruz-Auñón and Mejías 2013) and Porto Torrão (Valera *et al*. in press) the tombs appear to be spread across such wide areas that some funerary contexts are located several hundred metres, or even kilometres, away from the known ditches, and organised in several clusters. More and better surveys, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of the layout of the ditches, are needed, nonetheless.

**Concluding remarks**

Despite the evident shortcomings of the available data, in terms of spatial distribution of the evidence and, particularly, their temporality, some basic trends seem to be emerging in the archaeological

<figure><img src="image_164.png" /></figure>
record of the 4th and 3rd millennia BC in Southern Iberia. The changing nature of the relationship between necropolises and ditched enclosures throughout the period under study appears to be one of them. In the 4th millennium BC, during the Final Neolithic, both megalithic tombs and ditched enclosures were built. However, very rarely they are close in space. When ditched enclosures and tombs coincide in one region, e.g. the Ribeira do Álamo valley around Perdigões, the megalithic burials do not seem to cluster in the proximities of the enclosure. Quite the contrary, they are often distributed throughout the landscape, outside the enclosed spaces and almost always away from the ditches and their accompanying pits. Interestingly, some human remains, both body parts and whole carcasses, have been identified at ditched enclosures of the 4th millennium BC, but these are mostly restricted to a minority of pits. Hence, human bones found at ditched enclosures of this period were buried in non-monumental, non-dedicated containers distributed throughout non-specifically-funerary areas.

In the 3rd millennium BC, coinciding with the Chalcolithic, and in clear contrast with the Final Neolithic, necropolises of tombs (tholoi and hypogea) began to form around ditched enclosures of the period. However, this process only occurred at a few sites – the ‘mega-sites’ – that stand out from the rest because of their unique characteristics: large enclosed areas, monumental features (ditches and pits) and sometimes walls and houses. Moreover, the apparent association of ditched enclosures and dedicated funerary areas consisting of clusters of tombs should only be taken as valid when the simultaneity of their use is demonstrated with systematic radiocarbon dating programmes. Unfortunately, that is not the case for most sites at the moment, and the chronological relationships between ditches, pits, walls, tombs and houses often remain unclear.

## Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under REA grant agreement nº 2012-326129. It has also received funding from the Plan Nacional de I+D+I of the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain (project number HAR2010-21610-C02-01).

## Bibliography

* ARTEAGA, O.; CRUZ-AUÑÓN, R. 1999. Una valoración del patrimonio histórico en el campo de silos de la finca El Cuervo-RTVA (Valencina de la Concepción, Sevilla). Excavación de urgencia de 1995. Anuario Arqueológico de Andalucía. Sevilla. 1995: 3, p. 608-616.

* BOAVENTURA, R. 2006. Os IV e III milénio a.n.e. na região de Monforte, para além dos mapas com pontos: os casos do cluster de Rabuje e do povoado com fossos de Moreiros 2. Revista Portuguesa de Arqueologia, Lisbon. 9: 2, p. 61-73.

* BOAVENTURA, R. 2011. Chronology of Megalithism in South Central Portugal. In García Sanjuán, L.; Scarre, C.; Wheatley, D., ed. – Exploring Time and Matter in Prehistoric Monuments: Absolute Chronology and Rare Rocks in European Megaliths. Antequera: Menga Monographic Series 1, p. 159-190.

* BOAVENTURA, R.; MATALOTO, R. 2013. Entre mortos e vivos: nótulas acerca da cronologia absoluta do Megalitismo do Sul de Portugal. Revista Portuguesa de Arqueologia, Lisbon. 16, p. 81-101.

* BRÜCK, J. 1999. Ritual and rationality: some problems of interpretation in European Archaeology. European Journal of Archaeology. 2: 3, p. 313-344.

* CÁMARA, J. A.; SPANEDDA, L.; GÓMEZ DEL TORO, E.; LIZCANO, R. 2011. La discusión sobre la función de los fosos en la Prehistoria reciente del sur de la Península Ibérica. Modas y temores. In Abellán, J.; Castañeda, V., coord – Homenaje al profesor Antonio Caro Bellido. Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz, Servicio de Publicaciones, p. 61-80.

* CONLIN, E. 2003. Los inicios del III milenio a.C. en Carmona: las evidencias arqueológicas. Carel, Carmona. 1, p. 83-143.

<figure><img src="image_165.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_166.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_167.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_168.png" /></figure>
CRUZ-AUÑÓN, R.; ARTEAGA, O. 1999. Acerca de un campo de silos y un foso de cierre prehistóricos ubicados en 'La Estacada Larga' (Valencina de la Concepción, Sevilla). Excavación de urgencia de 1995. Anuario Arqueológico de Andalucía. Sevilla. 1995: 3, p. 600-607.

CRUZ-AUÑÓN, R.; MEJÍAS, J. C. 2013. Diversidad de prácticas funerarias e identidades en el asentamiento de Valencina de la Concepción (Sevilla). In García Sanjuán, L.; Vargas Jiménez, J. M.; Hurtado, V.; Ruiz Moreno, T.; Cruz-Auñón, R., ed – El asentamiento prehistórico de Valencina de la Concepción (Sevilla). Investigación y tutela en el 150 aniversario del descubrimiento de La Pastora. Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla. p. 175-199.

GARCÍA SANJUÁN, L. 2009. Introducción a los sitios y paisajes megalíticos de Andalucía. In García Sanjuán, L.; Ruiz, B., ed – Las grandes piedras de la Prehistoria. Sitios y paisajes megalíticos de Andalucía. Antequera: Junta de Andalucía, p. 12-31.

GARCÍA SANJUÁN, L.; DÍAZ-ZORITA BONILLA, M. 2013. Prácticas funerarias en estructuras negativas en el asentamiento prehistórico de Valencina de la Concepción (Sevilla): análisis contextual y osteoarqueológico. In García Sanjuán, L.; Vargas Jiménez, J. M.; Hurtado, V.; Ruiz Moreno, T.; Cruz-Auñón, R., ed – El asentamiento prehistórico de Valencina de la Concepción (Sevilla). Investigación y tutela en el 150 aniversario del descubrimiento de La Pastora. Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, p. 387-403.

GARCÍA SANJUÁN, L.; MURILLO-BARROSO, M. 2013. Social Complexity in Copper Age Southern Iberia (ca. 3200-2200 Cal B.C.). Reviewing the 'State' Hypothesis at Valencina de la Concepción (Seville, Spain). In Cruz Berrocal, M.; García Sanjuán, L.; Gilman, A., eds. – The Prehistory of Iberia: Debating Early Social Stratification and the State. New York: Routledge, p. 119-140.

GARCÍA SANJUÁN, L.; VARGAS JIMÉNEZ, J. M.; HURTADO, V.; RUIZ MORENO, T.; CRUZ-AUÑÓN, R., ed – El asentamiento prehistórico de Valencina de la Concepción (Sevilla). Investigación y tutela en el 150 aniversario del descubrimiento de La Pastora. Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, 576 p.

GONÇALVES, V. S. 1992. Revendo as Antas de Reguengos de Monsaraz. Lisboa: UNIARQ/INIC.

HURTADO, V. 1986. El Calcolítico en la cuenca media del Guadiana y la necrópolis de La Pijotilla. In Actas de la Mesa Redonda sobre Megalitismo Peninsular. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, p. 51-77.

HURTADO, V. 1999. Los inicios de la complejización social y el campaniforme en Extremadura. Spal. Seville. 8, p. 47-85.

HURTADO, V. 2008. Los recintos con fosos en la Cuenca Media del Guadiana. Era-Arqueologia. Lisbon. 8, p. 182-197.

JORGE, S. O. 1994. Colónias, fortificações, lugares monumentalizados. Trajectória das concepções sobre um tema do Calcolítico peninsular. Revista da Faculdade de Letras. Porto. II Serie XI, p. 447-546.

LAGO, M.; ALBERGARIA, J. 2001. O Cabeço do Torrão (Elvas): contextos e interpretações previas de um lugar do Neolítico Alentejano. Era-Arqueologia. Lisbon. 4, p. 39-63.

LAGO, M.; DUARTE, C.; VALERA, A. C.; ALBERGARIA, J.; ALMEIDA, F.; CARVALHO, A. 1998. Povoado dos Perdigões (Reguengos de Mosaraz): dados preliminares dos trabalhos arqueológicos realizados em 1997. Revista portuguesa de Arqueologia. Lisbon. 1: 1, p. 45-152.

LECHUGA, M.; SOTO, M.; RODRÍGUEZ ARIZA, M. O. 2014. El poblado calcolítico 'Ventanilla del Rapa' (finales III milenio Cal. BC.), Mancha Real, Jaén. Un recinto de fosos entre las estribaciones de Sierra Mágina y el Alto Guadalquivir. Trabajos de Prehistoria. Madrid. 71: 2, p. 353-367.

LEISNER, G.; LEISNER, V. 1951. Antas do Concelho de Reguengos de Monsaraz. Lisboa: UNIARCH/INIC (1985).

LIZCANO, R. 1999. El Polideportivo de Martos (Jaén): un yacimiento neolítico del IV milenio a.C. Nuevos datos para la reconstrucción del proceso histórico del Alto Guadalquivir. Córdoba: Obra Social y Cultural Cajasur, 333 p.

LIZCANO, R., CAMARA, J. A., RÍQUELME, J. A., CAÑABATE, M. L., SANCHEZ, A.; AFONSO, J. A. 1991-92. El Polideportivo de Martos. Producción económica y símbolos de cohesión en un asentamiento del Neolítico Final en las campañas del Alto Guadalquivir. Cuadernos de Prehistoria de la Universidad de Granada. Granada. 16-17, p. 5-101.
MÁRQUEZ-ROMERO, J. E. 2003. Recintos Prehistóricos Atrincherados (RPA) en Andalucía (España): Una propuesta interpretativa. In Jorge, S. O. – Recintos murados da Pré-história recente. Técnicas constructivas e organização do espaço. Conservação, restauro e valorização patrimonial de arquitecturas pré-históricas. Porto: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, p. 269-284.

MÁRQUEZ-ROMERO, J. E. 2006. Neolithic and Copper Age ditched enclosures and social inequality in the Iberian South (IV-III millennia cal BC). In Díaz-Del-Río, P.; García Sanjuán, L., eds – Social inequality in Iberian Late Prehistory. Oxford: BAR., p. 171-187. (BAR International Series; 1525).

MÁRQUEZ-ROMERO, J. E.; JIMÉNEZ-JÁIMEZ, V. 2010. Recintos de Fosos. Genealogía y significado de una tradición en la Prehistoria del suroeste de la Península Ibérica (IV-III milenios AC). Málaga: SPICUM Servicio de publicaciones de la Universidad de Málaga, 588 p.

MÁRQUEZ-ROMERO, J. E.; JIMÉNEZ-JÁIMEZ, V. 2013. Monumental ditched enclosures in Southern Iberia (fourth-third Millennia Cal BC). Antiquity. 87: 336, p. 447-460.

MÁRQUEZ-ROMERO, J. E.; JIMÉNEZ-JÁIMEZ, V. 2014. Recent Prehistory enclosures and funerary practices: some remarks. In Valera, A. C., ed – Recent Prehistoric Enclosures and Funerary Practices in Europe. Proceedings of the International Meeting held at the Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon, Portugal, November 2012). Oxford: BAR., p. 149-154. (Bar International Series; 2676).

MÁRQUEZ-ROMERO, J. E.; VALERA, A. C.; BECKER, H.; JIMÉNEZ-JÁIMEZ, V.; SUÁREZ PADILLA (2011). El Complexo Arqueológico dos Perdigões (Reguengos de Monsaraz, Portugal). Prospecciones Geofísicas – Campañas 2008-09. Trabajos de Prehistoria. Madrid. 68: 1, p. 175-186.

MARTÍN DE LA CRUZ, J. C.; LUCENA, A. 2003. Visiones y revisiones de Papa Uvas (Aljaraque, Huelva). In Jorge, S. O., ed – Recintos murados da Pré-história recente. Técnicas constructivas e organização do espaço. Conservação, restauro e valorização patrimonial de arquitecturas pré-históricas. Porto: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, p. 285-306.

MARTÍN DE LA CRUZ, J. C. 1987. El Llanete de los Moros. Montoro, Córdoba, Excavaciones Arqueológicas en España, 151. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura.

MOLINA, F.; CÁMARA, J. A.; CAPEL, J.; NÁJERA, T.; SÁEZ, L. 2004. Los Millares y la periodización de la Prehistoria del Sureste. In II-III Simposios de Prehistoria Cueva de Nerja. Nerja: Fundación Cueva de Nerja, p. 142-158.

MORÁN, E.; PARREIRA, R. 2003. O Povado calcolítico de Alcalar (Portimão) na paisagem cultural do Alvor no III milenio antes da nossa era. In Jorge, S. O. ed – Recintos murados da Pré-história recente. Técnicas constructivas e organização do espaço. Conservação, restauro e valorização patrimonial de arquitecturas pré-históricas. Porto: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, p. 307-328.

NOCETE, F. 2001. Tercer milenio antes de nuestra era. Relaciones y contradicciones centro/periferia en el Valle del Guadalquivir. Barcelona: Bellaterra, 187 p.

RODRIGUES, F. 2014. Skeletons in the ditch: funerary activity in ditched enclosures of Porto Torrão (Ferreira do Alentejo, Beja). In Valera, A. C., ed – Recent Prehistoric Enclosures and Funerary Practices in Europe. Proceedings of the International Meeting held at the Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon, Portugal, November 2012). Oxford: BAR., p. 59-70. (Bar International Series; 2676).

VALERA, A. C. 2006. A margem esquerda do Guadiana (região de Mourão), dos finais do 4º aos inícios do 2º milénio AC. ERA-Arqueologia. Lisbon. 7, p. 136-210.

VALERA, A. C. 2012a. Mind the gap: Neolithic and Chalcolithic enclosures of South Portugal. In Gibson, A., ed – Enclosing the Neolithic. Recent studies in Britain and Europe. Oxford: BAR., p. 165-183. (BAR International Series; 2440).

VALERA, A. C. 2012b. Ditches, pits and hypogea: new data and new problems in South Portugal Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic practices. In Gibaja, J. F; Carvalho, A. F.; Chambon, P., ed. – Funerary Practices in the Iberian Peninsula from the Mesolithic to the Chalcolithic. Oxford: BAR., p. 103-112. (BAR International Series; 2417).

VALERA, A. C. 2013. Cronologia dos recintos de fossos da Pré-História Recent e em território português. In Arnaud, J. M.; Martins, A.; Neves, C., ed – Arqueologia em Portugal: 150 Anos. Lisboa: Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses, p. 335-343.

<figure><img src="image_169.png" /></figure>
VALERA, A. C.; BECKER, H.; BOAVENTURA, R. 2013a. Moreiros 2 (Arronches, Portalegre): geofísica e cronologia dos recintos interiores. Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património. Lisbon. 9, p. 37-46.

VALERA, A. C.; FILIPE, I. 2004. O povoado do Porto Torrão (Ferreira do Alentejo). ERA-Arqueologia. Lisbon. 6, p. 28-61.

VALERA, A. C.; FILIPE, V.; CABAÇO, N. 2013b. O recinto de fosso de Outeiro Alto 2 (Brinches, Serpa). Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património. Lisbon. 9, p. 21-35.

VALERA, A. C.; GODINHO, R. 2009. A gestão da norte nos Perdigões (Reguengos de Monsaraz). Novos dados, novos problemas. Estudos Arqueológicos de Oeiras. Lisbon. 17, p. 371-387.

VALERA, A. C.; SANTOS, H.; FIGUEIREDO, M.; GRANJA, R. (in press). Contextos funerários na periferia do Porto Torrão: Cardim 6 e Carrascal 2. In Actas do 4º Colóquio de Arqueologia do Alqueva, Beja (2010).

VALERA, A. C.; SILVA, A. M. 2011. Datações de radiocarbono para os Perdigões (1): contextos com restos humanos nos sectores I and Q. Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património. Lisbon. 7, p. 7-14.

VALERA, A. C.; SILVA, A. M.; MARQUEZ-ROMERO, J. M. 2014. The temporality of Perdigões enclosures: absolute chronology of the structures and social practices. Spal. Sevilla. 23, p. 11-26.

VARGAS, J. M. 2004. Carta Arqueológica Municipal de Valencina de la Concepción. Sevilla: Junta de Andalucía.

WHITTLE, A.; HEALY, F.; BAYLISS, A. 2011. Gathering Time. Dating the Early Neolithic enclosures of Southern Britiain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxbow books.

ZAFRA, N.; HORNOS, F.; CASTRO, M. 1999. Una macro-aldea en el origen del modo de vida campesino: Marroquíes Bajos (Jaén) c. 2500-2000 cal. ANE. Trabajos de Prehistoria. Madrid. 56: 1, p. 77-102.

ZAFRA, N.; CASTRO, M.; HORNOS, F. 2003. Sucesión y simultaneidad en un gran asentamiento: la cronología de la macro-aldea de Marroquíes Bajos, Jaén. c. 2500-2000 cal ANE. Trabajos de Prehistoria. Madrid. 60: 2, p. 79-90.

<figure><img src="image_170.png" /></figure>
# Ditched enclosures and the ideologies of death in the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic South Portugal

António Carlos VALERA

NIA-ERA Arqueologia, Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behavior (ICArEHB), Cç. Santa Catarina 9C, 1495-705 Cruz Quebrada-Dafundo. Portugal
antoniovalera@era-arqueologia.pt

**Abstract**

South Portugal Recent Prehistory has been in permanent empirical 'revolution' since the beginning of this century, namely in what concerns funerary practices. The traditional image of the megalithic monuments as the main funerary architectures of Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities no longer stands. In the context of more diversified funerary architectures and spaces, some ditched enclosures have emerged as places that maintain specific special connections with areas of necropolis and revealing themselves as places where funerary practices and body manipulations appear as significant social practices. It is argued that the funerary world is part of a cosmogony embedded and expressed by some of those enclosures and by the inter-contextual relations they established.

**Keywords:** Enclosures, funerary practices, Neolithic, South Portugal

**Résumé**

La Préhistoire du sud du Portugal est en 'revolution' empirique permanente depuis le début du siècle, en particulier en ce concerne les pratiques funéraires. L'image traditionnelle des monuments mégalithiques comme seules architectures funéraires des périodes néolithiques et chalcolithiques est aujourd'hui dépassée. Dans un contexte de plus grande variété d'architectures et d'espaces funéraires, certaines enceintes fossoyées se sont révélées comme des lieux qui maintiennent des relations étroites avec les nécropoles et également comme des espaces où se déroulent des pratiques funéraires et des manipulations de corps, ce qui témoigne de pratiques sociales évidentes. Dans cet article, il est présenté l'hypothèse selon laquelle le monde funéraire est partie intégrante de la cosmogonie qui fonde ces enceintes et par les relations qu'elles entretiennent avec les autres contextes.

**Mots-clés:** Enceinte, pratiques funéraires, Néolithique, Sud Portugal

**Introduction**

The traditional literature on Portuguese Recent Prehistory always have established a dichotomy between settlements and places of economic activities grouped in one side and places of sacred and symbolic activities (including here the funerary practices and contexts) clustered in the other. This separated spatiality was assumed as a projection of clearly separable dimensions of life, as we can experience today, especially in the western world.

However, the projection in past societies of the modern western social clustering of existence has been criticized for long in all historical sciences. In the case of Portuguese Recent Prehistory, current data on enclosures is reinforcing this criticism, showing how apparently spatial separated dimensions of life and architecture are in fact structurally linked and sometimes fused to the point of creating problems to our set of conceptual tools.

Being a phenomenon of continental scale during Recent Prehistory, enclosures present a great variety of architectonic solutions, locations, sizes and contexts. That multiplicity has generated diversified interpretations: domestic settlements, places of refuge, corrals, places for exchange, communal assemblies, places of social aggregation and identity management, sacred places, locals for funerary practices, places related to astronomic observations, route markers, etc. (Andersen, 1997). Many

<figure><img src="image_171.png" /></figure>
of these functionalities may be combined in numerous of these contexts, where a cosmological dimension (places that express world views) is underlying that plurality of specific functions. This cosmological reference is present in astronomic orientations of many of these sites, in the places chosen for their locations and in the ways they organize meaningful large scale landscapes or in the frequency in which they reveal themselves as stages for social practices highly ritualized: ceremonial feasts for interchange, similar or not to Potlatch type ceremonies (Mauss, 2008), funerary practices, complex body manipulations and depositions of human and animal remains or particular observances in specific periods of the year that architecture seems to materialize. Summing up, many of these enclosures are impregnated with cosmological meaning, assuming a holistic significance that is resistant to modern social categorization. One of those resistances is precisely related to the idea of a clear separation of worlds between the living and the dead and to the assumption that the social practices involving the later are passive mirrors of the former.

The last two decades revealed the presence of ditched enclosure in South Portugal to an extent previously unsuspected (Valera, 2013a) (Figure 1). Radiocarbon is showing that they emerged in this area in the Late Neolithic (generally between 3350 to 2900 BC) and developed through the Chalcolithic (3rd millennium BC) (Figure 2). Recent unpublished dates bring the emergence of ditched enclosures to the late Middle Neolithic (3600-3500 BC) also in Alentejo region. Available data shows that since the beginning they show a strong articulation with the funerary contexts. This relation can be perceived in four main domains:

* they share cosmological ideas;

* they may be linked in the organization of landscapes and places;

* they may spatially structure each other.

* and they may be merged.

These relations, that functioned at different scales (from the site to the landscape) and different social dimensions (from the material practice to the ideological perception), talk about an ideological and ontological fluidity that generates contextual mixtures or, more adequately, contextual wholes.

## 1. Sharing cosmological ideas

Regarding cosmology, it has been noted that megalithic passage graves reveal the preoccupation with eastern orientations and with the Sun rising (Hoskins, 2009) or other stars, like the Aldebaran (Silva, 2010). This same general fact was also documented for megalithic cromlechs of South Portugal (Silva e Calado, 2003). A similar ideological prescription was recognized in both megalithic architectures that, serving different symbolic purposes, shared the same social space: the sacred and symbolic world.

The recent research in ditched enclosures in South Portugal shows that the same general fact can also be observed in many of these sites (Valera, 2013b), especially when complete plans are available (Figure 3).

At Perdigões, the inner Late Neolithic enclosure has its circularity interrupted by a strait layout of the south part of the ditch until the gate (Figure 3a). This axis is roughly aligned with the summer solstice at sunrise. The same circumstance can be observed in another ditch involving the previous, but dating from the Chalcolithic. From this same period, the gates of the double outside ditch system also seem to have astronomic orientations: the eastern ones are orientated to both solstices at sunrise and the western ones are orientated at both solstices at sunset.

This pattern of general orientation of gates to solstices and equinoxes (or to the moon larger standstill) is present in several other sites, like Xancra, Santa Vitória, Outeiro Alto 2 or Bela Vista 5 (Figure 3b to 3e) showing that a specific cosmological order is shared by enclosures and megalithic architectures. The same arguments can be presented to same walled enclosures, namely in Central-North Portugal.

<figure><img src="image_172.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_173.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_174.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_175.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_176.png" /></figure>

FIGURE 1. DISTRIBUTION OF ENCLOSURES IN PORTUGAL. SQUARES = WALLEDBENCLOSURES; SMALL CIRCLES = DITCHED ENCLOSURES; LARGE CIRCLES = LARGE DITCHED ENCLOSURES; STARS = SITES WITH DITCHED AND WALLEDBENCLOSURES.

<figure><img src="image_177.png" /></figure>
<table><caption>TABLE 1. RADIOCARBON DATES AVAILABLE FOR SOUTH PORTUGAL DITCHED ENCLOSURES. WITH THE EXCEPTION OF TORRE DO ESPORÃO, ONLY THE DATES SAMPLES FROM INSIDE THE DITCHES WERE CONSIDERED.</caption><thead><tr><td>Ref.</td><td>BP</td><td>Context</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Beta-330092</td><td>4530±40</td><td>Pedrigões ditch 12</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-315242</td><td>4450±30</td><td>Perdigões ditch 6 base</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-318359</td><td>4390±30</td><td>Perdigões ditch 6 top</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-350352</td><td>4390±30</td><td>Perdigões ditch 5</td></tr><tr><td>Wk18487</td><td>4538±32</td><td>Juromenha 1</td></tr><tr><td>Wk18488</td><td>4547±35</td><td>Juromenha 1</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-169263</td><td>4540±100</td><td>Juromenha 1</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-169264</td><td>4550±40</td><td>Juromenha 1</td></tr><tr><td>OxA-5443</td><td>4540±60</td><td>S. Jorge de Ficalho</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-350350</td><td>4410±30</td><td>Moreiros 2</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-350351</td><td>4350±30</td><td>Moreiros 2</td></tr><tr><td>Wk-38618</td><td>4464±29</td><td>Monte da Contenda 1</td></tr><tr><td>Wk-38619</td><td>4478±29</td><td>Monte da Contenda 1</td></tr><tr><td>Sac-2232</td><td>4390±50</td><td>Porto Torrão Ditch 1</td></tr><tr><td>Oxa-5534</td><td>4010±70</td><td>Torre dos Exporão</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-285098</td><td>4050±40</td><td>Perdigões ditch 3</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-285096</td><td>4050±40</td><td>Perdigões ditch 3</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-285095</td><td>3980±40</td><td>Perdigões ditch 3</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-285097</td><td>3980±40</td><td>Perdigões ditch 4</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-289264</td><td>3940±40</td><td>Perdigões ditch 4</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-339604</td><td>3920±30</td><td>Outeiro Alto 2</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-315725</td><td>3890±30</td><td>Perdigões ditch 1</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-315723</td><td>3820±30</td><td>Perdigões ditch 1</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-315722</td><td>3890±30</td><td>Perdigões ditch 1</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-315721</td><td>3840±30</td><td>Perdigões ditch 1</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-315719</td><td>3780±30</td><td>Perdigões ditch 1</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-315720</td><td>3860±30</td><td>Perdigões ditch 1</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-315716</td><td>3770±30</td><td>Perdigões ditch 1</td></tr><tr><td>Sac-2027</td><td>3810±50</td><td>Porto Torrão ditch 2</td></tr><tr><td>Sac-2233</td><td>3910±80</td><td>Porto Torrão ditch 2</td></tr><tr><td>Sac-2028</td><td>3700±60</td><td>Porto Torrão ditch 2</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-261320</td><td>3770±40</td><td>Horta dos Albardões 3</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-324673</td><td>3810±30</td><td>Bela Vista 5 ditch 2</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-324674</td><td>3770±30</td><td>Bela Vista 5 ditch 1</td></tr><tr><td>Beta-324676</td><td>3650±30</td><td>Bela Vista 5 ditch 1</td></tr></tbody></table>

This general search for an eastern orientation is also visible in the locations selected to build the enclosures that are frequently positioned in topographies orientated to east. That is evident in Perdigões, where the enclosures were located in a natural theatre that has it visibility over the landscape limited to east and the limits of that visibility are roughly coincident with the solstices (Figure 4a), turning the horizon in a annual solar ‘calendar’ and where the hill of Monsaraz, located at 90°, marks the equinoxes (Valera, 2010a). In Xancra the enclosures are situated in the middle of a smooth slope, cut by two streams that are naturally convergent to a point with the same orientation of the enclosure’s gates (winter solstice or moon larger standstill), showing a clear relation between the enclosures architecture, topography, the horizon and astronomic events. Similar circumstances can be observed in the megalithic cromlechs of the region, like Almendres, Portela dos Mogos, Vale d’el Rei or Vale Maria do Meio (Silva, Calado, 2003), underlying the ideological proximity between these constructions, that Perdigões and Torrão seem to physically materialize: in these two sites enclosures and cromlechs are side by side. Many other ditched enclosures show the same general settings in slopes or natural theatres, like Folha do Ouro, Paraíso, Monte do Olival, Bela Vista 5, Monte da Contenda, Charneca, Nobre 2 or Lobeira de Cima. Enclosures are, therefore, related to landscapes in ways that cannot be reduced to the strictly economic and political roles (resources management, territorial control).

## 2. Organization of landscapes and places

In fact, at least since the Late Neolithic, ditched enclosures and megalithic architectures participate in the building up of highly symbolic places and landscapes through topographic and architectonic choices that provide specific visual relations and through the formation of places of long term emblematic reference.

Perdigões is an emblematic example. As referred, the site was imbedded in a natural topographical theatre, open to east with the limits of the overture roughly coinciding with both solstices at sunrise. Between the enclosure and the horizon marked by the Monsaraz hill there was a large megalithic landscape with

<figure><img src="image_178.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_179.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 2. RADIOCARBON DATES AVAILABLE FOR SOUTH PORTUGAL DITCHED ENCLOSURES (CORRESPONDING TO 10 SITES). WITH THE EXCEPTION OF ONE SITE, ONLY DATES FROM INSIDE DITCHES WERE CONSIDERED.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_180.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_181.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 3. GATE ORIENTATIONS: A- PERDIGÕES; B- XANCRA; C- OUTEIRO ALTO 2; D- SANTA VITÓRIA; E- BELA VISTA 5.</figcaption></figure>

more than a hundred passage graves and several standing stones and cromlechs (one of them just outside the enclosure, in the eastern side). A visual alignment between Perdigões, the areas of two

<figure><img src="image_182.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_183.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_184.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_185.png" /></figure>
biggest decorated standing stones of the region and the prominent hill of Monsaraz can also be detected (Figure 4). The enclosures, the megalithic monuments, their locations and visual connections, all participate in a construction of a highly symbolic local scenery: an interdependent meaningful landscape and not a dichotomised one, where past and new buildings and sites are integrated in the construction of a sense of particular order.

<figure><img src="image_186.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 4. LANDSCAPE OF PERDIGÕES ENCLOSURE. A- EASTERN VISUAL HORIZON FROM INSIDE THE ENCLOSURE (ARROWS MARK THE SOLSTICES); B- EQUINOXES LINEAR CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PERDIGÕES, TWO DECORATED STANDING STONES AND THE HILL OF MONSARAZ.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_187.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_188.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_189.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_190.png" /></figure>
At Outeiro Alto 2 (Figure 5) the relation between the enclosure and the funerary contexts is expressed in diachronic terms. The site is located in a small hill. In its north extremity a small timber circle was built, surrounded by three funerary hypogea and a funerary pit, dating from Late Neolithic (second

<figure><img src="image_191.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 5. OUTEIRO ALTO 2: 1- LATE NEOLITHIC TIMBER CIRCLE AND NECROPOLIS; 2- BRONZE AGE NECROPOLIS; 3- CHALCOLITHIC DITCHED ENCLOSURE.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_192.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_193.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_194.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_195.png" /></figure>
half of the 4th millennium BC). In the Late Chalcolithic an also small patterned sinuous ditched enclosure with the gate aligned to the winter solstice was built in the other extremity of the hill. Finally, in the Bronze Age (first half of the 2nd millennium BC), a necropolis of funerary pits and hypogea was added in the northeast part of the hill (Valera, Filipe, 2010). In the long term, but with significant intervals, a place of social and symbolic relevance was being built by the aggregation sequence of the enclosure and the funerary contexts. In fact, despite the clustered distribution of the different phases of occupation, what stands is the selection of the same hill where a set of ritualized constructions and practices connected to life and death seem to be the catalyser of the recurrent use of the same place.

A similar process, but shorter in time, may be seen in already mentioned site of Torrão, where in a small hill a Late Neolithic enclosure, a megalithic cromlech and a small megalithic tomb are associated (Lago, Albergaria, 2001): even if they were not built exactly in the same period, by the end of the 4th millennium BC they all participate in the construction of the meaning of the site.

### 3. Enclosures and necropolis areas

In some cases, during the 3rd millennium BC, contemporaneous enclosures and areas of necropolis are mutually structuring each other. This happens especially in the sites that grew to become large ditched enclosures with a capacity to aggregate (if continuously or periodically, is something still open to debate) a significant amount of people. In Perdigões, during the Chalcolithic, a necropolis with several *tholoi* type tombs was built at the eastern side of the enclosures (Figure 6a), between them and the previous megalithic cromlech (Valera *et al.* 2014). This group of collective tombs, apparently exclusively used for secondary depositions, was built precisely in the middle of the eastern opening of the natural theatre where the enclosures were located and where the slope gives way to the valley punctuated by megalithic passage graves. More than establishing a border, the necropolis provided a link through a visual (and walking) trajectory that connected the enclosures, the necropolis of *tholoi* type tombs, the cromlech, the megalithic landscape and the eastern horizon.

At Alcalar several clustered groups of funerary monuments surrounded the enclosure (Morán, 2008), here in the northern quadrant. At Porto Torrão, during the Chalcolithic, clusters of *tholoi* and hypogea are known in the South and Eastern limits of the site (Valera, 2010b) (Figure 6b). The eastern necropolis seems to be particularly large, with geophysics showing the presence of tens or even hundreds of tombs, clustered around segments of ditches that, in one excavated context, were functioning as atriums of access to underground graves. The absence of the global plans of the ditched enclosures of Alcalar and Porto Torrão, though, prevents an analysis similar to the one done for Perdigões enclosures and their relations with the necropolis and with the local landscape. However, data relating the presence of funerary practices and body manipulations inside the enclosures (more in Porto Torrão and just punctual in Alcalar, where the areas excavated are small) suggest a certain spatial ambiguity and that a clear demarcation of spaces might not be so clear. This same general perception was developed for the similar site of Valencina de la Concepción, in southwest Spain (Costa Camaré *et al.* 2010).

### 4. Enclosures, funerary practices and body manipulations

In fact, during the 3rd millennium BC funerary contexts and practices invaded some enclosures. Inside Porto Torrão (Figure 7) we have burials in pits and depositions of parts of human remains in anatomical connexion and some scattered human bones inside ditches (Rodrigues, 2014). Although the number of represented individuals is small when compared with the numbers provided by the excavated tombs in the periphery of the enclosure, it reveals not just the presence of funerary practices with primary depositions inside the enclosure, but also the manipulation of body parts and their deposition in contexts that suggest other ritualized practices involving the human and animal remains rather than just formal funerary ones.

<figure><img src="image_196.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_197.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 6. A- PERDIGÕES EASTERN NECROPOLIS; B- PORTO TORRÃO PERIPHERAL NECROPOLIS.</figcaption></figure>

At Perdigões the presence of funerary practices and body manipulation inside the enclosure is more intense. By the middle 3rd millennium BC the outside ditch makes a curve to deliberately involve

<figure><img src="image_198.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_199.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 7. PORTO TORRÃO DITCH WITH DEPOSITIONS OF HUMAN REMAINS (AFTER RODRIGUES, 2014).</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_200.png" /></figure>
part of the previous *tholoi* necropolis while the tombs were still in use (Figure 6a), transforming an external funerary area in an internal one. At the same time human remains, along with animal remains, stones and pottery sherds, were being deposited inside ditches and, in the central area of the enclosures, secondary depositions of cremated remains of hundreds of individuals were being deposited in pits and in open area, sometimes mixed with parts of non cremated bodies still in anatomical connection (Valera *et al.*, 2014). Here, the minimum number of individuals represented inside the enclosures is of several hundreds.

Finally, at Bela Vista 5, in the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC, the role of an enclosure as a stage for funerary practices reaches its more formal expression, as the enclosure might have been

<figure><img src="image_201.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 8. BELA VISTA 5 ENCLOSURE, WITH CENTRAL PIT BURIAL OF A WOMAN.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_202.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_203.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_204.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_205.png" /></figure>
built to receive the burial of a woman and associated practices (Valera, 2014): the burial was made in a central pit, the only structure inside the small inner ditched enclosure, surrounded by a larger one, built not as a continuous ditch but through the addition of segments with different sizes filled in different times with deposits of selected materials, mainly pottery sherds (Figure 8).

Although the number of enclosures with human remains inside is still relatively low (the large enclosure of Salvada also provided a human bone in surface prospection, suggesting the existence of similar contexts inside the perimeter of the ditches – Valera and Pereiro, in press), the available evidence for the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic and the theoretical debate that is being generated clearly drift us from that old and strict dichotomy assumed for Alentejo region (and others) of settlements as a profane ground versus necropolis as a sacred ground, from the image of megalithic and cave graves as the exclusive spaces for the deceased, from the idea that human body manipulations were confined to funerary rituals of a more formal nature and, in sum, from the idea of a highly compartmented world.

## Discussion

Prehistoric architectures, particularly the ones related with settlements, are frequently reduced to their more technical and functional dimensions and the relations established with landscapes reduced to resource exploitation and visual control of territories and circulation routes. However, while organizer of space, architecture simultaneously creates and traduces ways of conceiving the world, of experiencing and communicating it. As all throughout Europe, many of the Portuguese ditched enclosures, namely the ones for which we have complete plans, suggest that there is a strong cosmological meaning underlying their architecture, the landscape they help to structure and some of the social practices that were carried on inside them. They are ‘places in relation’, that organize as well as express a certain way of being in the world, not always easy to capture and define. In them we can find, fused, several of the dimensions in which our analytic modern spirit divides and categorizes the whole human social. In a way, they are holistic expressions of the communities that built and used them, for they ‘seem to involve every dimension of the Neolithic existence of their times in one way or another, and their power and renown must have rested in part in this concentration of concerns’ (Whittle, 2014: 7). Being so, the approaches to enclosures must not isolate them from the relations in which they are inserted and that gave them sense. It is not possible to understand a site like Perdigões disconnected from the megalithic landscape that is in front of it, visually captured between its topographical location and the provided ‘solar horizon’. Perdigões ‘are in relation’ with a landscape inhabited by the living and by the dead (as the enclosure) and only in that relation the site can be understood.

In South Portugal, since they appeared (in the second half of the 4th millennium BC according to current available chronology), ditched enclosures reveal strong relations to principles that we can also detect in megalithic monuments and during the 3rd millennium the associations with funerary practices and body manipulations became more evident. Presently, social practices involving the treatment conceded to the dead and their body remains in the region during the 3rd millennium BC is characterized by a considerable diversity that is in clear contradiction with the perception of a certain homogeneity and spatial segregation traditionally induced by megalithic monuments.

As we have seen, the relation that we can appreciate between enclosures and the places and practices involving the dead may be perceived in different scales and dimensions, from the structuring of a place to a landscape organization, through a more apparent spatial demarcation or a more ambiguous one. The particular articulation between enclosures and funerary megalithic structures has been noted for other European regions (Evans, 1988a and 1988b; Whittle, 1988a and 1988b; Andersen, 2002; Bradley, 2005). It is not just a question of spatial proximity or of playing an aggregation role for the communities that built and used megalithic monuments (Edmonds, 1993 e 1999; Thomas, 1996; Marquez Romero, 2001), but a question of effective interpenetration of practices and of their spatial arrangements. Related in diverse ways and social dimensions, they helped to build a space

<figure><img src="image_206.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_207.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_208.png" /></figure>
that reflects what might be called a Neolithic cosmogony, a world view organized through diversified but coherent architectures and perpetuated through social practices, not clearly bounded and with a strong capacity for communal aggregation.

As to the contexts with human remains inside ditched enclosures, they cannot be understood exclusively *per se*, outside relations that may have been established between them or established with other social practices that also were occurring in those enclosures. It has been suggested that some of the distinct funerary practices and body manipulations that were occurring in large ditched enclosures may have been related as specific steps of ritualized procedures (Valera, Godinho, 2009). Enclosures, nearby tombs, ritualized practices of structured depositions of a variety of materials (where human bones are included) may be in some way connected in a sequential practice. A critical aware of that possibility must be developed, for we may be creating autonomous entities that make it difficult to understand the relational organization of the whole. As Whittle put it regarding the enclosures with human depositions ‘Can we really distinguish between burial sites and sites with burials? (...) it is unwise to separate the human burials from the complex as a whole (...) The site is demonstrably the scene for prolonged depositions of various kinds, amongst which the human burials are only one element.’ (Whittle, 1988b: 144-145). The argument is that they cannot be understood as an independent ritual procedure because their symbolic expression and social, spatial and temporal roles go far behind the need to provide a destiny to the dead.

These contextual mixtures show that dimensions of social life were more fluid and that we must approach territoriality in the bases of that fluidity. The diversity of funerary practices and contexts where bodies are manipulated during the Chalcolithic show that these actions were a central aspect of life that has no clear boundaries. Therefore, where aprioristic dichotomist perceptions of contexts established the framework for the interpretation of enclosures and of human remains and associated social practices we should now put the effort of looking for the part played by these contexts and practices in the construction of the contextual meaning and social role of a particular place or landscape.

In fact, the development of Neolithic (in a broader sense, integrating the Chalcolithic) may be considered a transitional period between more fluid perceptions of the world to more demarcated ones. Hybridism and ambiguity characterize these moments of cosmological and ontological transition and conformed human relations and human organizations of the world. We may consider that the dichotomy of domestic / non domestic regarding the organization of space and social dimensions of life is as much arguable (Bradley, 2003; 2005) as it is regarding the relations of humans and animals. For these relations levels of ontological fluidity have been assumed (Ingold, 1994, 2000; Valera, 2012), based in idea of more permeable ontological boundaries and in the concepts of dividual personhood (Hallowell, 1960; Marriott, 1976; Bird-David, 1999; Fowler, 2004). The perception of a dividual existence generates porous categories and a more relational connection between things and beings and between wholes and parts. It should be expected that this more permeable forms of organizing the world would be inserted in the ways human communities organized themselves in space and in time and that they would be expressed through a contextual fluidity and ambiguity regarding the spatial materialization of categories such as life and dead or sacred and profane. A situation of permeability of cosmological and ontological borders generates a situation of permeability of their materializations in space and in the architectonic forms of organizing it, creating problems to concepts such as domestic, sacred, necropolis, monument etc. due to their characteristics of exclusivity and of partition. As Thomas argued, ‘By failing to recognize that the human lives exceed our conceptual schemes, we do not learn from the past so much as organise it. Most critically, where we seek to nullify the difference of the past by identifying people who are ‘just like us’ (...) we transform that difference to a universal sameness.’ (Thomas, 2004: 238).

The relation between prehistoric ditched enclosures and the ideologies of death confront us with a historical situation that is quite different from ours and that demands the critical control of the

<figure><img src="image_209.png" /></figure>
conceptual tools we use to approach it. A control that must not be confused with any kind of naive idea of putting ourselves between brackets, for we can only talk about History as historical beings (Gadamer, 1998).

## Bibliography

ANDERSEN, N. H. 1997. *The Sarup Enclosures. The Funnel Beaker Culture of the Sarup site including two causewayed camps compared to the contemporary settlements in the area and other European enclosures*. Aarhus: Jysk arkeologisk Selskab, 404 p. (Jutland Archaeological Society Publications; 33.1.).

Andersen, N.H. 2002. Neolithic Enclosures of Scandinavia. In Varndell, G.; Topping P., eds. – *Enclosures in Neolithic Europe: Essays on Causewayed and Non-Causewayed Sites*. Oxford: Oxbow Books, p. 1-10.

BRADLEY, R. 2003. Life less ordinary: the ritualization of the domestic sphere in Later Prehistoric Europe. *Cambridge Archaeological Journal*. 13: 1, p. 5-23.

BRADLEY, R. 2005. *Ritual and domestic life in Prehistoric Europe*. London: Routledge, 234 p.

BIRD-DAVID, N. 1999) – ‘Animism’ revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology. Current Anthropology. 40(1), p. S67-S91. (Special Issue Culture – A second chance ?).

EDMONDS, M. 1993. Interpreting causewayed enclosures in the past and the present. In Tilley, C., ed. – Interpretative archaeology. Oxford: Berg, p. 99-142.

EDMONDS, M. 1999. Ancestral Geographies of the Neolithic: landscapes, monuments and memory. London: Routledge, 173 p.

EVANS, C. 1988a. Monuments and analogy: the interpretation of causewayed enclosures. In Burgess, C.; Topping, P.; Mordant, C., Maddison, M., eds. – Enclosures and defences in the Neolithic of Western Europe, Oxford: Archaeopress, p. 47-73. (BAR International Series; 403 i).

EVANS, C. 1988b. Excavations at Haddenham, Cambridgeshire: a planned enclosure and its regional affinities. In Burgess, C.; Topping, P.; Mordant, C., Maddison, M., eds. – Enclosures and defences in the Neolithic of Western Europe, Oxford: Archaeopress, p. 127-148. (BAR International Series; 403 i).

FOWLER, C. 2004. The Archaeology of Personhood. An Anthropological Approach. London: Routledge, 184 p.

GADAMER, G. 1998. O problema da consciência histórica. V. N. de Gaia: Estratégias Criativas, 116 p.

HALLOWELL, A. I. 1960. Ojibwa ontology, behaviour, and world view. In Diamond, F., ed. – Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 17-49.

HOSKIN, M. 2009. Orientations of dolmens of Western Europe. In Cerdeño Serrano, M. L.; Rodríguez Caderot, G., eds. – Arqueoastronomía, Complutum, 20: 2. Madrid: UCM, p. 165-175.

INGOLD, T. 1994. From trust to domination. An alternative history of human-animal relations. In Manning, A.; Serpell, J., eds. – Animals and human society: Changing perspectives. London: Routledge, p. 1-22.

INGOLD, T. 2000. The Perception of the Environment. Essays on Livehood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge, 480 p.

LAGO, M.; ALBERGARIA, J. 2001. O Cabeço do Torrão (Elvas): contextos e interpretações prévias de um lugar do Neolítico alentejano. Era Arqueologia. 4. Lisboa: Era Arqueologia / Colibri, p. 39-62.

MÁRQUEZ ROMERO, J. E. 2001. De los ‘Campos de Silos’ a los ‘Agujeros Noegros’: sobre pozos, depósitos y zanjas en la Prehistoria Reciente del Sur de la Península Ibérica. SPAL. 10, p. 207-220.

MARRIOT, M. 1976. Hindu transactions: diversity without dualism. In Kapferer, B., ed. – Transaction and Meaning: Directions in the Anthropology of exchange and symbolic behavior. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, p. 109-142.

MORÁN, E. 2008. Organização espacial do Povoado Calcolítico de Alcalar (Algarve, Portugal). ERA Arqueologia. 8. Lisboa: Era Arqueologia / Colibri, p. 138-147.

MAUSS, M. 2008. Ensaio sobre a dádiva, Lisboa: Edições 70.

<figure><img src="image_210.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_211.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_212.png" /></figure>
RODRIGUES, F. 2014. Skeletons in the ditch: funerary activity in ditched enclosures of Porto Torrão (Ferreira do Alentejo, Beja)'. In Valera, A. C., ed. – Recent Prehistory enclosures and funerary practices. Oxford: Archaeopress, p. 59-69. (BAR. International Series; 2676).

SILVA, C. M.; CALADO, M. 2003. New astronomically significant directions of megalithic monuments in the Central Alentejo. Journal of Iberian Archaeology, 5. Porto: ADECAP, p. 67-88.

SILVA, F. 2010. A new survey of Neolithic dolmens in central Portugal. Journal of Cosmology. 9, pp. 3094-3106.

THOMAS, J. 1996. Time, Culture and Identity. An interpretive archaeology. London: Routledge, 288 p.

THOMAS, J. 2004. Archaeology and modernity. London: Routledge, 275 p.

VALERA, A. C. 2010a. Mapping the cosmos: a cognitive approach to iberian prehistoric enclosures. In Valera, A. C.; Evangelista, L., eds. – The idea of enclosure in recent iberian Prehistory, Oxford: Archaeopress, p. 99-108. (BAR International Series; 2124).

VALERA, A. C. 2010b. Gestão da morte no 3º milénio AC no Porto Torrão (Ferreira do Alentejo): um primeiro contributo para a sua espacialidade. Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património. 5, Lisboa: NIA-ERA Arqueologia, p. 57-62.

VALERA, A. C. 2012. A ‘Vaca de Almada’ e o problema das relações Homem/Animal na Pré-História Recent e. Almadan. 17. Almada: Centro de Arqueologia da Almada, p. 22-29.

VALERA, A.C. 2013. Recintos de fossos da Pré-História Recent em Portugal. Investigação, discursos, salvaguarda e divulgação. Almadan. Segunda Série. 18, p. 93-110.

VALERA, A. C. 2013b. Breve apontamento sobre a dimensão cosmogónica dos recintos de fossos da Pré-História Recent no Interior Alentejano., Cadernos do Endovélico. 1. Colibri/CMA, p. 51-63.

VALERA, A. C., ed. 2014. Bela Vista 5. Um recinto do Final do 3º milénio a.n.e. (Mombeja, Beja), Era Monográfica. 2. Lisboa: Nia-Era.

VALERA, A. C.; FILIPE, V. 2010. Outeiro Alto 2 (Brinches, Serpa): nota preliminar sobre um espaço funerário e de socialização do Neolítico Final à Idade do Bronze. Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património. 5. Lisboa: NIA-ERA Arqueologia, p. 49-56.

VALERA, A. C.; GODINHO, R. 2009. A gestão da morte nos Perdigões (Reguengos de Monsaraz): novos dados, novos problemas. Estudos Arqueológicos de Oeiras. 17. Oeiras: Câmara Municipal, p. 371-387.

VALERA, A. C.; SILVA, A. M.; CUNHA, C.; EVANGELISTA, L. S. 2014. Funerary practices and body manipulations at Neolithic and Chalcolithic Perdigões ditched enclosures (South Portugal). In Valera, A. C., ed. – Recent Prehistoric Enclosures and Funerary Practices. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 37-57. (BAR International Series; 2676).

VALERA, A. C.; PEREIRO, T. (in press). Os recintos de fossos da Salvada e Monte das Cabeceiras 2 (Beja, Portugal). Actas do VII Encontro de Arqueologia del Sudeste Peninsular. Aroche, pp. 17-27.

WHITTLE, A. 1988a. Contexts, activities, events – aspects of neolithic and copper age enclosures in central and western Europe, In Burgess C.; Topping P.; Mordant C.; Maddison M., eds. – Enclosures and defences in the Neolithic of Western Europe, Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 1-19. (BAR International Series; 403 i).

WHITTLE, A. 1988b. Problems in Neolithic archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (New Studies in Archaeology), 256 p.

WHITTLE, A. 2014. The times and timings of enclosures. In Valera, A. C., ed. – Recent Prehistoric Enclosures and Funerary Practices. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 1-12. (BAR International Series; 2676).

<figure><img src="image_213.png" /></figure>
# Towards a definition of the prehistoric landscape in the Plateau of Sigarra: visibility and territoriality between the Middle Neolithic and Bronze Age

Natalia SALAZAR ORTIZ

Universitat de Lleida, Departament d'Història Grup de Recerca en Arqueologia, Prehistòria i Història Antiga (GRAPHA), Plaça Víctor Siurana 1, 25003 Lleida. Spain
natalia.salazar@historia.udl.cat

**Abstract**

This study presents the practical application of GIS method of Cumulative Viewshed Analysis in order to infer intervisibility relationships between archaeological sites of the Middle Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. We may found these sites chronologically and typologically connected in a particular historical territory structured around the ancient Iberian settlement and afterwards Roman town of Sigarra, in the geographic centre of the current Catalonia (els Prats de Rei, Barcelona). The Neolithic visibility patterns will show a lack of political and territorial hierarchy; while in the Bronze Age, in direct relation to the social complexity detected by archaeology, visibility patterns reflect a rich spatial organisation.

**Keywords:** Cumulative Viewshed Analysis, visibility network, megalith tombs, Neolithic-Bronze Age, territory, Sigarra

**Résumé**

Cette étude présente l'application pratique de la méthode de SIG Cumulative Viewshed Analysis, afin de déduire les relations d'intervisibilité entre des sites archéologiques du Néolithique moyen, du Chalcolithique et de l'âge du Bronze. On observe que ces sites sont chronologiquement et typologiquement connectés dans un territoire historique particulier structuré autour de l'ancienne fortification ibérique et plus tard municipium romain de Sigarra, dans le centre géographique de l'actuel Catalogne (els Prats de Rei, Barcelone). Les modèles de visibilité pour l'époque néolithique montrent l'absence de hiérarchie politique et territoriale; tandis qu'à l'âge du Bronze, en accord avec la complexité sociale observée par les données archéologiques, les modèles de visibilité reflètent une organisation spatiale assez complexe.

**Mots-clés:** Cumulative Viewshed Analysis, réseau de visibilité, mégalithe, Néolithique/âge du Bronze, territoire, Sigarra

**Introduction**

Visibility can be one of the keys that provide the answer to why a site is occupying a given location and not another. We can also consider the visual characteristics of a site by its position within the surrounding landscape, showing a visual relationship with other contemporary or earlier sites or with the natural components that integrate the landscape (Wheatley and Gillings 2002: 202).

The concept of visibility can be summarized as the quality and the distance that enable humans to recognize an object. Visibility itself can not be studied as a material object, but is the result of established relationship with the environment. It is not pottery, not a sculpture, nor a burial mound. Instead, its connection to the cultural context and the actors of the society is a fact (Zamora 2008). In a landscape, the location of an ancient burial mound would set up several questions: its situation is it casual, in the context in which it was located it was visible?, is it produced a particular emotional effect?, etc.

In this sense, the so-called post-processual archaeology gives meaning and an active part to the landscape as a set of elements that act as signs, symbols and messages interacting with society as a

<figure><img src="image_214.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_215.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 1. LOCATION OF THE PLATEAU OF SIGARRA ON THE IBERIAN PENINSULA MAP.</figcaption></figure>

whole, in its parts and with the individual (García 2005: 244). It is within this space where visibility has an important role, since it is the sensory transmitter of these signs and symbols between social components within the landscape.

In summary visibility can be a useful tool for analyzing a landscape from a practical point of view (control of the territory and defence of settlements) or from a symbolic perspective (e.g., visibility of the anthropic elements and / or artistic, religious or funeral ones). Thus, we can differentiate between quantitative methods for studying spatial aspects of a visual event (processual perspective) and the phenomenological analysis of the visible elements in the landscape (post-processual perspective).

From both perspectives we analyze and calculate visibility relationships that may exist between a number of archaeological sites dating from the Middle Neolithic and Bronze Age. Our ultimate goal is to try to define and compare the probable existence of a territorial structure within the communities of these periods documented in the landscape dominated by the Iberian settlement, later Roman town, of *Sigarra*, in the geographic centre of the current Catalunya (els Prats de Rei, Barcelona, Fig. 1) (Salazar 2012).

# 1. Visibility analysis GIS methods

Visibility can be calculated and analyzed by GIS using different tools. The functions most used in the calculation of visibility let you know the surface area viewable from a certain observation point, visual connections between different locations and identify as well, territorial or settlement units.

## 1.1. Line of sight (LOS)

GIS provide a tool for incorporating visibility in the archaeological analysis that allows the calculation of simple viewshed of a point by determining which parts of the study area theoretically seen from a

<figure><img src="image_216.png" /></figure>
given observation location, and allowing subsequent determination of direct intervisibility between
a set of elements.

That is, given two locations we can calculate the line of sight (LOS) between them: the straight line
that is not truncated by the topography of the area allowing, therefore, direct visual communication
between the two landmarks.

The calculation of a line of sight or viewshed of a place is based on a raster map and is currently
available as own functionality in many GIS. To calculate a viewshed is necessary to have the
following thematic layers of information: A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and a layer that encodes
the location or locations from which you want to determine the viewshed. In our study these locations
will be mapped as points that represent each a site.

The calculation routine described requires drawing a straight line from each point of origin to all
other raster cells of the elevation model. In this way you can get the heights of all the cells that
lie along the straight line from the origin to the destination cells, to determine whether or not they
exceed the height of the line in three dimensions.

The achieved result can be either positive or negative, conventionally encoded as a 1 for a visible cell
or 0 to a cell which is not visible. If this calculation for the entire raster is implemented, the result
is a binary image with the areas of the landscape that have a direct line of sight to the target cell,
coded 1, and those with no line of sight commonly encoded with 0. We will refer to the new image
as viewshed map or map of visibility.

Many GIS allows restrictions to visibility calculations, such as limiting the extent of the grid cells to
analyze or also considering the viewing angle. Most GIS specification also allows assigning to the
observer a height above the DEM surface. For an adult human often a standard height of 1.7 m is
used, even though the human eye height above the ground rather depend on the particular subject. If
we analyze the viewshed of a structure such as a watchtower we should take into account the height
of the observation platform (Cazorla 2008).

In our case, since we deal mostly with sites composed by underground structures excavated and / or
still buried in the ground, we will consider the altitude above sea level of each site, without adding
any other parameter.

Viewshed should be the starting point for any further operations and it determines all existing lines of
vision 360 degrees around the point of observation. So we should found whether the LOS from the
observation point to each raster cell is or not interrupted by the topography of the land. As a result we
will obtain a binary map where each cell responds to the result of a LOS taken from an observation
point (Wheatley and Gillings 2002: 181-184).

**1.2. Measuring visual impact: Cumulative Viewshed Analysis**

The Cumulative Viewshed Analysis is the union of viewshed calculations taken from each observation
point. Thus, in cases where we are interested in patterns of visibility within a group of sites of
interest, it is possible to obtain a map of viewshed for each site location. These individual maps are
added by simple algebra to create a surface. This resulting surface represents for each cell within the
landscape the number of sites with a line of sight from that cell. For a sample of *n* sites, the value of
this area obviously corresponds to integers limited to vary between 0 and *n*. We will obtain as a result
a cumulative viewshed map for sites of our particular area of interest.

Renfrew was the first to define in a manual way this functionality as the number of times a cell
is visible by all control points, i.e. indicating for each observer how many times it was visualized
by the group of observation points (Renfrew 1979: 15). A process that was originally manual was

<figure><img src="image_217.png" /></figure>
computed by David Wheatley who applied it to the study of the visual relationships between the Neolithic barrows of Salisbury plains (UK) (Wheatley 1995). This study applied over an area of 400 km² around Stonehenge, showed the prominent character of these mounds from which there was positive visibility for many others. His hypothesis considered that they functioned as territorial markers or family graves, by defending the idea that the construction of a new monument was made in a place where one could see or visually dominate other previously constructed mounds. Thus the construction acquired an added value of authority and legitimacy.

**1.3. Visual network**

Is the repetition of simple visibility for each of the analyzed sites. The added value of this study lies in the possibility to translate graphically visual interconnections between them. Thus we can study the topology of the network, and therefore this method is a way of understanding the possible relationships between different social agents (Wellman and Berkovitz 1988).

**2. Typology of sites: Megaliths in Catalunya**

At the end of the Early Neolithic period is when for the first time megaliths are documented in Catalunya. It is proposed for this period a chronology based on funerary objects, megalithic architectures and radiocarbon data that dates back the beginning of this phenomenon to the mid-5th millennium BC, while its end, always uncertain, is still placed in mid-2nd millennium BC. The Middle Neolithic farming communities that were related to cultural elements of Chassey type of the Roussillon-Empordà area were the first builders of megaliths in Catalunya. The oldest catalan megalithic monuments are the burials covered by complex mounds. They consist of a box of slabs arranged vertically and forming a rectangular plan finally surrounded by a mound of stones.

During the early 4th millennium BC appears in the interior highlands of Catalunya (including the plateau of *Sigarra*) what experts call the ‘Solsonian phase of the catalan Middle Neolithic’ characterized by slabs boxes buried in reusable chambers (Castany 2008), true Neolithic dolmens. Meanwhile, in the coastal zone will be the time of the tombs with ancient type corridor and polygonal or trapezoidal chamber, dated along the 4th millennium BC, while megaliths with evolved corridor, also known as ‘Catalan galleries’ emerged during the first half of 3rd millennium BC. These Catalan galleries, characterized by rectangular chambers and slab corridors getting longer, despite originating on the coast soon will be also found in the hinterland. During the late 3rd millennium and the first centuries of the 2nd millennium BC takes place the expansion of simple megaliths with different systems of access to the burial chamber. One of the most exciting research novelties is the connection that has been established in northern Catalunya between enclosures and megalithic tombs of these Neolithic or Chalcolithic communities and the important role that standing stones and rock engravings seem to have had as landmarks between territories (Tarrús 2010).

The construction of funerary monuments in prominent places in the landscape has been used by the humans, as we have seen, since immemorial time and throughout all periods to define territories in political, social and economic terms. Therefore, and due to the lack of studies of archaeological sites of *Sigarra* plateau, we think of great interest to analyze the patterns of visibility that may elucidate probable relationship between enclosures and megaliths along the chronological evolution of the megalithic phenomenon in Catalunya between the Middle Neolithic and the beginning of the Age of Metals. In addition we are fortunate to have in this territory several archaeological examples for each of the subtypes of Catalan megalith culture. Thus, the first group of sites that we will study is the Neolithic megaliths in order to try to establish for the first time in the highlands of *Sigarra* a relationship with the same chronology enclosures. On the other hand the same analysis will test the visibility patterns of a second group of Chalcolithic-Bronze Age enclosures and megaliths in order to check the differences and changes in the territorial organization of communities in each period.

<figure><img src="image_218.png" /></figure>
## 3. Results

### 3.1. Neolithic visibility patterns (5500-2200 cal. BC)

The plateau under analysis provides few archaeological data for this period, due mainly to an incipient development of scientific research. However we wanted to do a first analytical approach to the visibility patterns of the ten sites of Neolithic chronology that we know (see the list below). Of these ten, two are enclosures, three standing stones, and five are megalithic tombs. Except one of the enclosures, dating from the Early Neolithic, the rest of sites belong to the middle and late Neolithic period. The burial sites have been differentiated typologically according to the burial rite: two in slab chamber, one in a cave and three collective burial chambers of the Catalan Solsonian type described above.

We have tried to summarize in a single map the results of the two visibility analysis (viewshed and cumulative viewshed) that have been applied as explained in the methodology section (Figure 3). Based on the DEM raster of the plateau we have calculated the simple visibility from each of the ten sites, now converted into observation points. Remember that the viewshed function assigned a 0 to non-visible areas and a 1 to visible areas. Once the operation done as a result was obtained a new raster where the cells appeared divided according to whether they were visible or not from the observation points.

<table><caption>FIGURE 2. LIST OF SITES AND THEIR CHRONOLOGIES USED IN CALCULATING NEOLITHIC VISIBILITY PATTERNS.</caption><thead><tr><td>Site's name</td><td>Chronology (cal. BC)</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Cal Seuba</td><td>4000-3500</td></tr><tr><td>Torredenusa 1</td><td>3500-2500</td></tr><tr><td>Torredenusa 2</td><td>3500-2500</td></tr><tr><td>Vinya dels Rogers</td><td>3500-2200</td></tr><tr><td>Aguilar</td><td>3500-2500</td></tr><tr><td>Gangolells</td><td>3500-2500</td></tr><tr><td>Cal Pessetero</td><td>3500-2500</td></tr><tr><td>Cal Giralt</td><td>2500-2200</td></tr><tr><td>Can Gangolells</td><td>2500-2200</td></tr><tr><td>Campot</td><td>2500-2200</td></tr></tbody></table>

In the case of Neolithic sites, reclassification of this new raster as intervals of 1 observer in order to calculate the cumulative viewshed or number of observers for each point, has not added new nuances to the binary raster of simple viewshed. The new map shows added gradations in only two cases. Among them has been established a visual relationship that is also shown to be reciprocal. For other sites intervisibility is nonexistent, since the number of observers obtained is equivalent to 0.

The results of both analysis agree in indicating that the visible areas from all Neolithic sites are scarce and concentrated in very specific high locations (700-800 m above sea level), mainly dominating the crests of the mountains that define the plateau to the east, the north and west, and controlling access to the valley of the Anoia river, the main plateau aquifer that has its source in the vicinity of *Sigarra*. In view of the result, the location of both the Neolithic enclosures and tombs seems to rely on obtaining from invisible or at least discreet settlements, control of the main entrances to the plateau both from the highest and lower levels of the landscape, probably to protect or prevent both the living and the dead of possible foreign intrusions.

The two sites that show visual intercommunication are a hut settlement and the burial cave mentioned above (Torredenusa 1 and 2, 3500-2500 cal. BC. It is common sense that there is a visual relationship between these two sites, considering the short distance between them and their similar altitude (the
<figure><img src="image_219.png" /></figure>

FIGURE 3. MAP OF THE NEOLITHIC VISIBILITY PATTERNS (5500-2200 CAL. BC). SITUATION OF NEOLITHIC ENCLOSURES AND MEGALITHS IS SHOWN ON THE DEM OF THE STUDY AREA RECLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THE ALTITUDE ABOVE SEA LEVEL. WHEN VISIBILITY CALCULATIONS HAVE ESTABLISHED THAT VISUAL COMMUNICATION EXISTS BETWEEN SITES, IS INDICATED WITH A BLACK LINE.

first 440 m above sea level and the second 445 meters). However archaeology had considered only as possible their interrelation. Now, by the visibility analysis executed another argument to establish a probable relationship between this settlement and its possible cemetery must be added. This leads us to think that in the hypothetical case of having a higher density of archaeological sites, the analysis of its visual interconnection could be a good tool to link settlements with its necropolis. On the other hand, note that these two sites no longer show visual communication with the next closest tomb (1.5 km away), despite being contemporary (Vinya dels Rogers, 3500-2200 cal. BC). The population pattern would have then a very fragmented appearance, family-based small enclosures, with their tombs in the immediate habitat area within walking distance and without showing a symbolic conceptualization of the landscape or a hierarchical organization of the territory.

In this context it should be noted that the intervisibility between the menhirs and other sites has proved negative. However is usually attributed to these monuments a signaling function in the territory (Tarrús 2011: 94). Only one case (Gangolells, 3500-2500 cal BC) has provided a positive result. This is just a decorated standing stone marking the position of one of the Solsonian type collective burial chamber of the Late Neolithic mentioned above. Cumulative Viewshed Analysis of this site reciprocally connects it with a single site, precisely the only megalith (La Pera, 2200-1800 cal BC) that typologically shows the transition between the cultural changes of Late Neolithic and the

<figure><img src="image_220.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_221.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_222.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_223.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_224.png" /></figure>

FIGURE 4. THE MEGALITH OF LA PERA (PINÓS). THIS IS THE ONLY MEGALITH OF THOSE STUDIED IN THIS WORK THAT TYPOLOGICALLY SHOWS THE TRANSITION BETWEEN THE CULTURAL CHANGES OF LATE NEOLITHIC AND THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF METALS (2200-1800 CAL. BC). IT BELONGS TO A NEW TYPE OF TOMB THAT EMERGED IN EARLY 3RD MILLENNIUM BC: CATALAN GALLERIES OR MEGALITHS WITH EVOLVED CORRIDOR.

beginning of the Age of Metals (Cura 1987: 77-78). This megalith belongs to a new type of tomb that emerged, as we have said, in early 3rd millennium BC: Catalan galleries or megaliths with evolved corridor (Figure 4). Therefore, the visual relationship of these two sites is a first indication of change in the organizational patterns of landscape that seems to start to rely on the visual and symbolic impact of the tombs giving them a boundary function. The megaliths are located for the first time at the highest levels within the landscape (Gangolells is the only Neolithic site that is above 700 m above sea level). Although currently a hierarchy of space is not detected, this new trend is beginning to be consistent with the greater economic and cultural complexity of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age societies.

Finally we found an exception to the visual behaviour of Neolithic sites in the plateau of *Sigarra*. By contrasting diachronically visibility analysis between the Neolithic and Chalcolithic-Bronze Age the only enclosure dating from the Early Neolithic (Cal Seuba, 4000-3500 cal BC) has appeared visually connected to the three megaliths with the highest visual domain during the Age of Metals (see Figure 6). This is the Neolithic site at higher altitudes (655 m) after Gangolells megalith and the only one showing a wide diachrony. The site was reoccupied during the Iron Age and Roman times. Could that visual connection be an indication that in Early Neolithic there was already a tendency to occupy higher places with a greater visual impact? Why this trend disappeared in the middle Neolithic and did not recover until the Chalcolithic? Given the scarcity of archaeological remains we have no answer yet for the question.

## 3.2. Chalcolithic-Bronze Age visibility patterns (2.200-700 cal BC)

As we had more sites of Chalcolithic-Bronze Age (21, see the list below) visibility parameters have gained gradation and nuances (Figure 6). Logically, if we have more observation points we get

<figure><img src="image_225.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_226.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_227.png" /></figure>
<table><caption>FIGURE 5. LIST OF SITES AND THEIR CHRONOLOGIES USED IN CALCULATING CHALCOLITHIC-BRONZE AGE VISIBILITY PATTERNS.</caption><thead><tr><td>Site's name</td><td>Chronology (cal. BC)</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Els Tres Reis</td><td>1500-1200</td></tr><tr><td>Pedrafita</td><td>1500-1200</td></tr><tr><td>Les Maioles</td><td>2200-1800</td></tr><tr><td>Serragallarda</td><td>2200-1800</td></tr><tr><td>L'Oliva</td><td>2200-1800</td></tr><tr><td>Creu dels Albats</td><td>2200-1800</td></tr><tr><td>Can Cabot</td><td>1800-1500</td></tr><tr><td>La Pera</td><td>2200-1800</td></tr><tr><td>Collet de Su</td><td>2200-1800</td></tr><tr><td>Can Marquet de Grevalosa</td><td>2200-1800</td></tr><tr><td>Serra de Clarena I</td><td>1800-1500</td></tr><tr><td>Serra de Clarena II</td><td>1200-700</td></tr><tr><td>Boixadors</td><td>2200-1800</td></tr><tr><td>Cal Biel</td><td>2200-1800</td></tr><tr><td>Carosa II</td><td>1800-1500</td></tr><tr><td>Mirambell o Puig Camí</td><td>1200-700</td></tr><tr><td>El tossal del Puig, El</td><td>1200-700</td></tr><tr><td>Cal Vidal</td><td>1800-1200</td></tr><tr><td>Termes</td><td>1800-1500</td></tr><tr><td>Collet de Brics d'Ardèvol</td><td>1800-1500</td></tr><tr><td>Soler Lladrús</td><td>1800-1200</td></tr></tbody></table>

greater quantity and variety of observers. For this chronological period reclassification of viewsheds provides a diverse range of visible areas according to the number of observers. As the analysis of cumulative viewshed has provided only visible areas from the sites considered, it seems that in those times the concept of territorial control was based on a further extension of the areas dominated visually.

The result has allowed discriminating clearly the megaliths that are located within the area of influence of each enclosure, composing a visual network for each group within the territory. Each network shows inside a hierarchy of megaliths, so some show a visual dominance over the other. In total we have identified two visual networks that also appear connected between them. These connections are structured by two of the megaliths that are at higher altitude within the landscape (Boixadors, 777 m and Pedrafita, 768 m), and are also the two points that concentrate more observers. Certainly the funerary monument of Pedrafita (1500-1200 cal. BC) plays the role of a milestone between the two main visibility networks and therefore we should think that marks the border between two communities. Even its current name recalls his ancestral function: 'pedrafita' means milestone or stone-marker. However in Sigarra landscape the megalith of Boixadors (2200-1800 cal. BC), which has been very recently discovered (Carreras et al. 2005: 61-63), visually stands out above the other, with nine observers. Located in the mountains of the Serra de Castelltallat, which define the northern highlands of the plateau, this megalith may have acquired for its symbolic significance within the landscape, a sacred and shared function of particular relevance between the different Chalcolithic-Bronze Age communities. Boixadors occupies the apex of the rich territorial hierarchy evidenced by the identified visual networks. In any case, we wanted to test the visual relationship of Boixadors with the group of megaliths known north beyond the limits of Sigarra plateau in the municipality of Pinós, and the result is negative: the megalith of Boixadors was certainly conceived as the main funerary monument of the plateau communities.

In summary, the data seem to correspond with the greatest social and political complexity of the communities during the Age of Metals, where the hierarchy of enclosures and necropolis is increasingly evident in the area as evidenced by concrete archaeological data and as demonstrated by scientific studies that have analyzed these data (Cura 1987; Carreras et al. 2005; Castany 2008; Tarrús 2010, 2011; Vilardell 1987). Continuity is given to the trend that emerged in the Late Neolithic

<figure><img src="image_228.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_229.png" /></figure>

FIGURE 6. MAP OF THE CHALCOLITHIC-BRONZE AGE VISIBILITY PATTERNS (2200-700 CAL. BC). SITUATION OF CHALCOLITHIC-BRONZE AGE ENCLOSURES AND MEGALITHS IS SHOWN ON THE DEM OF THE STUDY AREA RECLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THE ALTITUDE ABOVE SEA LEVEL. NUMBER OF OBSERVERS THAT COULD SEE EACH SITE IS INDICATED BY GRADUATED CIRCLES IN WHITE. ALL SITES THAT HAVE SHOWN A RECIPROCAL VISUAL INTERCONNECTION COMPOSE A VISUAL NETWORK (2 WHITE AREAS WITH TRANSPARENCY). THE CONNECTION BETWEEN VISUAL NETWORKS (BLACK LINES) IS STRUCTURED BY TWO OF THE MEGALITHS (BOIXADORS AND PEDRAFITA). IT IS SHOWN ALSO THE ONLY ENCLOSURE (BIG BLACK POINT) DATING FROM THE EARLY NEOLITHIC (CAL SEUBA) THAT HAS APPEARED VISUALLY CONNECTED TO THE THREE MEGALITHS WITH THE HIGHEST VISUAL DOMAIN DURING THE AGE OF METALS.

and that consisted of building funerary monuments in the highest places. However, now the visual hierarchy by number of observers could indicate a gradation in the territorial organization and in the role that each community has assumed.

## Conclusions

The diachronic analysis of cumulative viewshed maps we have obtained allow outlining for the first time for the geographical area analyzed a conceptualization of landscape and a particular structure of the territory at each time period. This sketch seems to correspond with the general chrono-cultural changes that mark the transition between the Neolithic and Age of Metals in Catalunya. Microanalysis from the perspective of visibility of the *Sigarra* megaliths conducted here has been useful to bring nuances and value to macroanalysis of Catalan megalith culture.

<figure><img src="image_230.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_231.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_232.png" /></figure>
From a historical-archaeological view Neolithic visibility patterns showed a lack of political-territorial hierarchy, while in the Chalcolithic-Bronze Age, in direct relation to the social complexity detected by archaeology, visual networks reflect a funeral hierarchy which could be translated into a territorial hierarchy. The change of patterns starts in Late Neolithic when the first locations of tombs are detected at higher locations of the landscape, which leads us to conclude that the visual impact of these funerary monuments begins to be searched and calculated, becoming a constant and thus making them landscape and territorial milestones difficult to ignore.

With regard to statistics and results of the management process and data analysis using GIS, we highlight the usefulness of the calculations performed to reach new avenues of study of archaeological data. The archaeological site is not always explicit, but if we study it in relation to a group and specify its location on the map, can be seen as part of a 'whole', i.e. a landscape and/or a territory. The end result of this analysis provides both positive and negative data, leading the latter to approach new questions and review from other perspectives. We believe that through the case studied here, the GIS visibility analysis has confirmed and enriched both historical and archaeological knowledge that we had previously of the treated sites. Cumulative viewshed analysis thus becomes an experimental and objective tool essential to contrast the theoretical and speculative nature of historical discourse with mathematical reality provided by GIS.

Bibliography

CARRERAS, E. *et al*. 2005. Els monuments megalítics del marge dret del riu Cardener (Bages). Pyrenae. Barcelona. 36: 2, p. 41-83.

CASTANY, J. 2008. El megàlits neolítics del Solsonià. Lleida: Universitat de Lleida. 894 p. Unpublished doctoral thesis.

CAZORLA, R. 2008. El sistema defensivo de Villasviejas de Tamuja (Botija, Cáceres): una aplicación de software libre en el análisis de paisajes arqueológicos. Actas de las II Jornadas de SIG libre. Girona: Universitat de Girona. [Consult. 3 Jul. 2014]. Available at URL: http://www.sigte.udg.es/jornadassiglibre/

CURA, M. 1987. Origen i evolució del megalitisme a les comarques centrals i occidentals de Catalunya: I. Del Neolític Mitjà a l'Edat de Bronze. Cota Zero. Vic. 3, p. 76-83.

FISHER, P. 1991. First experiments in viewshed uncertainty: the accuracy of the viewshed area. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing. Durham. 57 (10), p. 1321-1327.

GARCÍA, L. 2005. Introducción al reconocimiento y análisis arqueológico del Territorio, Barcelona: Ariel. 352 p.

RENFREW, T. 1979. Investigations in Orkney. Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London. London. 38. 234 p.

SALAZAR, N. 2012. L'ager del *Municipium Sigarrensis*: poblament i xarxa viària entre la Prehistòria i l'Antiguitat Tardana. Barcelona: Societat Catalana d'Arqueologia. 132 p.

TARRÚS, J. 2010. El megalitismo pleno en Catalunya: de los sepulcros de corredor a los dólmenes simples, entre el IV y III milenios cal. AC. Munibe. Donostia. 32, p. 188-211.

TARRÚS, J. 2011. Menhirs i art megalitic a Catalunya: les darreres descobertes i el seu context. Notes. Mollet del Vallès. 26, p. 93-102

VILARDELL, R. 1987. Origen i evolució del megalitisme a les comarques centrals i occidentals de Catalunya, II. L'Edat de Bronze. Cota Zero. Vic. 3, p. 84-91.

WELLMAN, B.; BERKOVITZ, S. D. 1988. eds. Social Structures: A Network Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 499 p.

WHEATLEY, D. 1995. Cumulative viewshed analysis: a GIS-based method for investigating intervisibility, and its archaeological application. In Archaeology and Geographical Information Systems: A European Perspective. London: Taylor and Francis, p. 171-185.

WHEATLEY, D.; GILLINGS, M. 2002. Spatial technology and Archaeology. The archaeological applications of GIS. London-New-York: Taylor and Francis. 269 p.

ZAMORA, M. 2008. Territorio y espacio en la Protohistoria de la Península Ibérica. Estudios de visibilidad: el caso de la cuenca del Genil. [CD-ROM]. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

<figure><img src="image_233.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_234.png" /></figure>