Carlos Ribeiro (1813-1882), the Quaternary Portuguese formations and the antiquity of Man: an unknown manuscript

Abstract

We present an unpublished manuscript of Carlos Ribeiro, with notes added by himself about the Quaternary deposits of the Portuguese territory from Tras-os-Montes (Northern Portugal) to Algarve (Southern Portugal). Most interesting are the observations he wrote on the raised beaches of the western atlantic coast and, above all, about the Holocene formations of the lower Tagus valley, in connection with the shellmiddens of Magos and Muge for the first time carefully described. This manuscript was written in 1867 and completes another one, written between 1867 and 1869, already published by us. This is a more detailed document, concerning especially the oldest deposits that Carlos Ribeiro attributed to the Quartenary (those from the Lower and Middle Group), but in fact belonging to the Miocene and Pliocene. However, this manuscript presents a more accurate description of the Upper Group, the only one that corresponds totally to the Quaternary. Finally we discuss the reasons why this manuscript, of great importance for the study and understanding of the History of Geology and Archaeology, was not published at the time.