The transition from the need for humanity to live in symbiosis with nature, to being able to change and control it through agriculture and animal husbandry, is the seminal moment when demographic growth was no longer constrained by the carrying capacity of natural resources obtained from hunting, fishing, and gathering. Over a little more than ten thousand years, the rupture of these constraints has engendered the exponential growth of humanity and the consequent changes to the natural habitat to which we are witnesses. This article presents case studies of the varying responses from Late Mesolithic hunter-gatherer communities at four sites and in three regions on the north side of the Central Mediterranean basin, when confronted with the immigrant Neolithic agro-pastoralists originating from the Fertile Crescent, in the Aegean Basin, the Balkans, Sicily, and the Adriatic, as far as the Adige Valley in the foothills of the Southern Alps.
Este trabalho visa dar a conhecer um novo sítio de arte rupestre encontrado no vale do Sabor, afluente do Douro, por um dos subscritores deste trabalho (PV), em 2021, no âmbito dos trabalhos para a execução da Carta do Património do Concelho de Alfândega da Fé, distrito de Bragança. Trata-se de um painel com vários momentos de gravação, sendo o mais antigo caracterizado por um equídeo, um canídeo e uma arma de arremesso, gravado através de incisão filiforme. Posteriormente, surgem sulcos que se sobrepõem aos motivos figurativos. Numa última fase de gravação há picotados que parecem ter a intenção de destruir ou vandalizar os motivos mais antigos. A cena figurativa, pelas suas características gráficas e técnicas e por paralelos com os motivos gravados nas placas do Castelinho e da arte sidérica do Côa, pode incluir-se na Idade do Ferro do Nordeste português. Numa tentativa de interrelacionar-se este locus gravado com o povoamento verificou-se que, entre o território teórico de circulação de 60 a 90 minutos ocorrem, pelo menos, dois povoados genericamente contemporâneos que evidenciam possíveis redes de circulação num território com diferentes sítios e significados no contexto da Idade do Ferro.
The archaeological site of Montes Novos (Penafiel, Northern Portugal) was discovered in 1987 and comprised a set of remains associated mainly with Roman-period funerary practices. However, it also included various other ceramic artefacts, either whole or nearly complete, whose techno-morphological features and associations with negative structures allow for their broad relation to a regional Bronze Age necropolis. The study of the shelved data collected during the excavation work - part of which available at the Museu Municipal de Penafiel (MMPNF) - highlights the continuity of funerary practices at the site, and allows for the consideration of the construction, over time, of a mortuary landscape. The parallels between negative structures associated to certain ceramic containers exhumed there and other synchronous contexts, leveraged by radiocarbon dating, corroborate the hypothesis that these funerary practices date back (at least) to the regional Late Bronze Age.
Este artigo propõe uma investigação da paisagem fortificada proto-histórica no litoral norte de Portugal, entre os vales dos rios Âncora e Lima. Procuramos oferecer uma visão atualizada sobre a organização espacial, características morfológicas, funcionalidade e cronologia dos povoados fortificados da Idade do Ferro nesta região. Através da análise de modelos derivados de dados LiDAR, aliada a trabalho de campo e estudo da cultura material local e importada, pretendemos identificar e caracterizar um conjunto significativo de sítios, incluindo aqueles ainda não devidamente documentados. Ao explorar a relação espacial entre os povoados fortificados e o ambiente natural, bem como as interações culturais com outros grupos sociais, buscamos compreender os processos históricos que moldaram a paisagem cultural da região. Os resultados desta investigação permitem uma melhor compreensão da organização social e espacial das comunidades da Idade do Ferro desta região, contribuindo para uma discussão mais ampla em torno das dinâmicas históricas das sociedades indígenas da Idade do Ferro no Noroeste Peninsular e sua integração no mundo Romano.
As in many arid regions worldwide, wind-driven sand transport removes large quantities of sediment from multiple sources, thereby intensifying desertification processes in southern and southeastern Morocco. In this region, desertification is particularly evident through the active movement of dune sands.The study of wind dynamics in southern Morocco seeks to elucidate the environmental conditions and geomorphological processes that drive desertification, from bedrock erosion to the transport and deposition of diverse sand deposits. In this context, the present research provides a detailed petrographic and mineralogical characterization of the Dakhla sands, enabling the identification of their provenance and transport mechanisms The Dakhla dune sands consist primarily of quartz grains and accessory minerals, including oxides, heavy minerals, and sandstone fragments, with smaller amounts of feldspars, micas, and calcite. This mineralogical composition reflects erosion, transport, and depositional processes associated with crystalline and sedimentary formations from the Anti-Atlas and Saharan domains, which supply the study area through both hydrological and aeolian pathways. The quartz grains of the Dakhla dune sands, accumulated predominantly by wind action, are mainly rounded and dull grains of aeolian origin. However, a significant proportion comprises glossy, abraded grains of aquatic (mainly coastal or fluvial) origin, together with angular, locally derived grains. The mineralogical associations identified three main types of sand stocks: 1) Aeolian sands - dominated by rounded, dull quartz grains enriched in accessory minerals, primarily wind-transported and of likely crystalline origin. 2) Mixed alluvial–aeolian sands - characterized by glossy, abraded quartz grains enriched in accessory minerals, resulting from alluvial transport followed by aeolian reworking, with both crystalline and sedimentary sources. 3) Coastal sands - composed mainly of glossy, abraded quartz grains poor in accessory minerals, indicative of a highly quartzose composition of coastal origin. Overall, the results clarify the complex interplay between aeolian, alluvial, and coastal processes in shaping the Dakhla dune sands, and underscores the importance of sediment provenance analysis for assessing the evolution of desert landscapes in southern Morocco.
