Prehistoric ditched enclosures of the Monte da Contenda (Arronches) and Montoito 2 (Redondo)

Abstract

In the sequence of a project designed to detect and characterize new ditched enclosures in Alentejo region (South Portugal) two new sites were identified through Google Earth and submitted to geophysics (magnetometry). The results revealed two ditched enclosures of different size and complexity. One, Montoito 2, with surface material from Chalcolithic, has a relatively simple plan with a larger double ditched enclosure with an elliptic layout and a small sinuous ditch inside. The other, Monte da Contenda, is an extraordinary complex system of ditched enclosures, with diverse dimensions, layouts and times of construction / use. It has a long chronology, from the Late Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. A first survey of one of the ditches provided two radiocarbon dates from the last third of the 4th millennium BC. Archaeological material and faunal remains are characterized for each site and their relation to other nearby enclosures is discussed, underlining the need for establishing the temporalities of these kind of sites in order to adequately approach the reconstruction of local settlement networks.