"The Upper Palaeolithic rock art of Portugal in its Iberian context", in BUENO RAMÍREZ, P. & BAHN, P. G. (eds.), Prehistoric art as Prehistoric Culture, Oxford: Archaeopress Archaeology, pp. 123-133. (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Upper Palaeolithic rock art of Portugal in its Iberian context
Prehistoric Art as Prehistoric Culture
This text presents a synthesis of what is known of Palaeolithic rock art in Portugal. We observe, in Portugal, a great graphic homogeneity in pre-Magdalenian rock art and considerable differences between the southern and northern rock art during the Magdalenian. However, during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition, we recognize a new process of homogenization of Portuguese rock art. This evolution is, nevertheless, perfectly explained when we take into account the wider Iberian context of Upper Palaeolithic rock art.
The post-paleolithic rock art in Beira Alta (Center of Portugal)
Both the districts of Guarda and Viseu are part of Beira Alta’s region. Viseu’s district has some geographic and cultural traits of Atlantic kind. On the contrary, the geographic and cultural features of Guarda’s district are more of a continental type. Accordingly, Guarda’s district can be better defined as Beira Interior, forming a unity with Castelo Branco’s. This geographic and administrative dichotomy is also a reflection of what we find in the archaeological record. In Viseu’s district we find a lot more of megalithic tombs and other burial mounds. On the other hand, Viseu’s district has a very special “package” of rock art. In here we can distinguish two different traditions - an Atlantic one and second one corresponding to an engraved variant of the painted schematic art that we find in Portugal’s border and in all the Spanish country eastward. We’ve been collecting, since 1997, in Beira Alta, evidence showing us that this kind of engravings can be even older than those of Atlantic tradition. In synthesis, it is possible to define 4 artistic cycles in Beira Alta: one that corresponds to an engraved variant of schematic art dated from the end of the IV – beginning of the III millennium BC; a second one integrated in the Atlantic tradition that should be dated from Early Bronze Age; a third from Late Bronze Age characterized by footprints, horseshoes, phallic motifs and other figures; a fourth dated from Iron Age characterized by the use of incision.
[BAR International Series 2878], Oxford: BAR Publishing, p. 63-76 ISBN 978 1 4073 1484 6
Focused on a rather unknown, far as rock art is concerned, region of central northwest Portugal, this chapter presents a first critical inventory of rock art sites and findings within the area of the Gralheira Massif, including a part of the basin of the River Paiva. The discussion focuses on a dozen sites, showing remarkable diversity in their supports and representations, as well as a significant chronological range, from Neolithic to historical periods. The simplicity of most of the motifs recorded on the rocks does not allow a clear integration of these petroglyphs into the main ‘style’ of Portuguese Atlantic rock art, as Schematic manifestations are largely predominant over Atlantic ones. Amongst the recorded sites and findings, almost entirely unpublished so far, it is worth highlighting Cando’s engraved stone, a unique schist slab profusely engraved with schematic motifs.
Autores: Hipólito Collado Giraldo y José Julio García Arranz, en José Julio García Arranz, Hipólito Collado Giraldo y Gerorge Nash (eds.), The Levantine Question. Post-Palaeolithic Rock Art in the Iberian Peninsula, Budapest, Archaeolingua Foundation, 2012, pp. 227-261; ISBN 978-963-9911-31-4.
Paleolítico Superior y el periodo Neolítico constituye una línea de investigación que se viene abordando cada vez con mayor intensidad en la Península Ibérica. Ello resulta posible gracias fundamentalmente a recientes hallazgos en diversos contextos a lo largo y ancho del territorio peninsular que están permitiendo arrojar nuevas propuestas sobre aspectos referidos a técnicas, estilo y tipologías principales, algunas de las cuales incluyen al arte levantino como una de las manifestaciones más características de esta etapa. Un arte rupestre realizado en cualquier caso por grupos de economía cazadora-recolectora, herederos en el arte rupestre esquemático que, salvo puntuales excepciones, viene siendo considerado como la Bajo esta línea argumental vamos a abordar con el presente trabajo la caracterización de las manifestaciones de arte rupestre en el área occidental de la Península Ibérica encuadradas en este marco temporal que englobamos bajo la denominación de "ciclo preesquemático", tomando como base implantadas en otras áreas peninsulares.
Rock Art as Land Art: A Diachronic View of the Côa Valley (NE Portugal) Post-Palaeolithic Rock Art
The Côa Valley Palaeolithic open air rock art was made public during the second half of the 1990s. The discovery of this first art of the light, only previously hinted by a few sites in the Iberian Peninsula, was announced amidst a controversy that had international repercussions. In the Côa Valley a battle was fought between the conservation of a unique heritage and the construction of a large hydroelectric project that was threatening it. Conservation won, due to the efforts of the Portuguese citizens and of the international scientific community. The site was classified as a National Monument in 1997 and as World Heritage the following year. The controversy and modern recognition of this rock art ensemble was mainly caused by its Palaeolithic cycle. However, as surveys continued it was clear that in the same sites, and sometimes in the same panels, there were rock art motifs from other phases than the Palaeolithic. The Côa Valley has today one of the longest rock art cycles. Over 800 engraved panels are grouped in more than 40 sites, along the last 12 miles of the River Côa, and around its confluence with River Douro. Beginning in the Upper Palaeolithic, regional artistic practice continued throughout post-glacial phases. It comprises examples of sub-schematic and schematic motifs of the first agriculturalists, an ichnographically rich Iron Age rock art, ending in an historic phase, when it was produced mainly by millers, between the 17th century and the 1950s. Basing our analysis in its natural context, we shall present here the general features of this vast ensemble of Holocene rock art, in the context of the populations that produced and used it.