The necropolis of the Alcobertas cave (Rio Maior) and its importance for the knowledge of the Middle Neolithic in Portugal

Abstract

The archaeological occupation of the Alcobertas cave, a collective necropolis of the Serra dos Candeeiros in the “Maciço Calcário Estremenho” was characterized and dated. The two dates obtained, place the installation of the necropolis in the second quarter of the 4th millennium BC, corresponding to the full phase of the Middle Neolithic period. This conclusion is consistent with the typology of the archaeological materials, which have remained together with the anthropological set obtained, since the time of the excavation, in 1880, by António Mendes, collector of the former Geological Survey of Portugal.