Rendering death
Subtitle: ideological and archaeological narratives from recent prehistory (Iberia), proceedings of the conference held in Abrantes, Portugal, 11 May 2013
By: edited by Ana Cruz, Enrique Cerrillo-Cuenca, Primitiva Bueno Ramírez, João Carlos Caninas, Carlos Batata
Contributors: Cerrillo Cuenca, Enrique, editor
Series: BAR international series -- 2648; BAR international series -- 2648.
Publisher: Archaeopress
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Oxford
Language: eng
Number of pages: 138
ISBN-13: 9781407312873
Subjects: Ancient Funeral rites and ceremonies; Congresses; Ancient Inscriptions; Antiquities
Description: This book offers a perspective on death and memory in recent Prehistory on the western Iberian Peninsula (Portugal, Spanish Extremadura and Andalusia). Within this territory the contributors to this volume record the variability of architectonic forms indicative of lengthy period changes in funerary contexts and transformations in the ideological-symbolic substrate of pre-writing communities. The Portuguese karstic region explored in this study lacks megalithic monuments despite the abundant raw material. The contributors attempt to answer questions such as whether this signifies a break with our understanding of ‘Megalithism’ as a result of identity ideologies. Other regions exhibit an expansion of Megalithism, often with exuberant forms, reflecting territorial expansion, while in others we encounter cists, pits and tumuli – all indicators of a new funerary order. The examples investigated in this collection of papers include – for the Neolithic: Oleiros, Castelo Branco, Alto Alentejo and Mondego; for the Neo-Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age: Tomar, Abrantes, Santarém; for the Bronze Age: Pampilhosa da Serra, Alcoutim, Abrantes, Santarém, Viseu, Vila Nova de Paiva, Castro Daire. Included in this study are the necropolis caves of Spanish Extremadura, representing as they do a chronological continuum from the Early Neolithic to the Bronze Age, and other related sites such as the Canaleja Gorge karstic complex and a range of other megalithic phenomena (menhirs, stelae, cromlechs, dolmens) in the southern Iberian Peninsula (Alentejo and Andalusia).
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Rendering death - ideological and archaeological speeches from recent prehistory (Iberia) / Ana Cruz; title: Custodian stones: human images in the megalithism of the southern Iberian peninsula / P. Bueno Ramirez, R. De Balbín Behrmann, R. Barroso Bermejo; title: The contribution of Manuel Heleno to the knowledge of the funerary megalithic in Alentejo / Leonor Rocha; title: Megalithic rites of north Alentejo - Portugal / Jorge de Oliveira; title: Death as "life's mirror"? Funerary practices and trajectories of complexity in the prehistory of peasant societies of Iberia / João Carlos Senna-Martinez; title: The mound at Cimo dos Valeiros (Serra Vermelha, Oleiros, Castelo Branco). A neolithic burial site in the central Cordillera, south of Serra da Estrela / João Carlos Caninas, Mário Monteiro, André Pereira, Emanuel Carvalho, Francisco Henriques, João Araújo Gomes & Lídia Fernandes, Álvaro Batista; title: Caves, megalithism and tumuli - three diachronic realities in funerary archaeography from Alto Ribatejo / Ana Cruz, Ana Graça, Luiz Oosterbeek; title: Collective burial caves in Spanish Extremadura: chronology, landscapes and identities / Enrique Cerrillo Cuenca, Antonio González Cordero; title: Between dead and alive - the recent prehistory of the municipality of Pampilhosa da Serra (Portugal center) / Carlos Batata, Filomena Gaspar; title: Between norm and variation in the semiotic of the funerary world: examples and discussion of some abnormal graves in the Bronze Age Europe / Davide Delfino; title: The polimorphism of graves and the distribution of archeological remains in the southwest Bronze Age necropolis of Soalheironas (Alcoutim) / João Luís Cardoso, Alexandra Gradim; title: The faces of death: from Bronze to Iron Age, between the north and the south of the Portuguese territory / Raquel Vilaça.