Prehistoric Archaeology (Agro-Pastoral and Metallurgic Societies)
Code
711051004
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
História
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Mário Varela Gomes
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
Prerequisites
Subject matter
From the last hunter-gatherers to the first food producers
i)- Diachronic analysis of human settlement from the Epipaleolithic to the early Neolithic, related with the establishment of post-glacial conditions, the gradual increase in population density (demographic-ecological imbalances), and the dynamics of Neolithic innovations adoption.
ii)- Climatic deterioration of the the Middle Holocene; the take-over of the complex Mesolithic hunter-gathererers that developed a logistic mobility strategy, with extensive base camps, where a broad-spectrum economy (hunting, fishing, and shellfish gathering), the practice of storage, and the funerary function took place.
iii)- The greater role of marine-estuarine resources, amplified by the development of the estuaries that penetrate deeply into the interior, during the middle Holocene: the ecotone locations of the Mesolithic shell-middens of Tagus/Sado paleoestuaries and those of the Southwest Portuguese Coast.
iv)- A forager-farmer transition is seen as a revolutionary step (middle VI millennium BC), on the Southwest Portuguese Coast, in a regional prefaced intensification process of the subsistence system, and in a wider context of availability of economic and technological neolithic innovations.
v)- The neolithisation process of Sado and Tagus estuaries; the spread of the farming way of life (V millennium BC) throughout the Portuguese territory, and the emergence of Megalithism.
From the Secondary Products Revolution to the first agro-metallurgical societies
i)- At the later Neolithic when Portuguese Megaliths reach the apogee, it is necessary to search its explanation in the positive effects provoked by the Secondary Products Revolution in the acceleration of the rates of growth of all the indicators of economic and social development, such as productivity.
ii)- Characterization of the regional diversity of the Chalcolithic societies (first half of the III millennium BC), and the analyse of economic and social transformations that took place in the second half of the same millennium (Bell Beaker Period) related to the collapse of the Chalcolithic social organization, in direction to the more hierarchical Middle Bronze Age societies (II millennium BC). Archaeological evidence testimonies major changes in the settlement patterns and politic power structure, now more centralized in conspicuous and coercive elites associated with metallurgical production, and exchange networks of prestigious items.
Bibliography
Cardoso, J. L. (2002) - Pré-história de Portugal. Lisboa: Verbo., 456 pp.
Chapman, R. (1990) Emerging complexity. The Later Prehistory of South-East Spain, Iberia and the West Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 304 pp.
Gonçalves, V. dos S. e Sousa, A. C. (eds.) (2010) - Transformação e mudança no Centro e Sul de Portugal: o 4o e o 3o milénios a.n.e. Cascais: Câmara Municipal de Cascais e Uniarq, 581pp.
Soares, J. (2003) Os Hipogeus Pré-Históricos da Quinta do Anjo (Palmela) e as Economias do Simbólico. Setúbal: Museu de Arqueologia e Etnografia do Distrito de Setúbal, 238 pp.
Tavares da Silva, C. e Soares, J. (2006) Territórios da Pré-história em Portugal. Setúbal e Alentejo Litoral. Tomar: CEIPHAR, 209 pp.
Teaching method
Evaluation method