Evidence of contact between New and Old World: paleoparasitological and food remains study in the Tagus river population of Sarilhos Grandes (Montijo,Portugal)

The period of European maritime expansion that started in the fifteenth century had a great impact on trading, on human migrations and consequently in the dispersion of infectious diseases. Portugal was at the core of this expansion; however, studies about parasitic infections, especially helminths, are lacking. This study aims to help reduce this gap presenting the results of microscopic analysis of soil sediments collected from the São Jorge churchyard of Sarilhos Grandes (Montijo). Consecrated in the fourteenth century AD, it remained as a burial ground until the nineteenth century. Soil samples collected from the pelvic girdle of five adult individuals and samples taken as control were analysed under the microscope after current conventional methodological procedures were undertaken. Eggs from Ascaris lumbricoides were identified. Also eggs of trichostrongyle type species were identified in two individuals and may represent the first report in archaeological European samples. Food remains include potato and rice starches, muscle fibres, bivalves, pollen grains and fungi spores. The stratigraphy interpretation together with potato findings put the oldest skeletons to a chronology around the sixteenth century AD. These results are consistent with historical sources that documented the prominence of Tagus river nearby villages in maritime expansion.     

Of peasants and settlers: ideals of Portugueseness,imperial nationalism and European settlement in Africa,c.1930–c.1945

This article examines policies and ideas of European settlement in Africa through the lens of imperial rhetoric and nationalist imaginations in Portugal during the first decades of Salazar’s dictatorship. Even though European settlement in Africa was under discussion since Brazil’s independence, the debate was invigorated in the 1930s. This article will place the renewed interest within the wider context of transnational migration, world economic crisis and inter-European competition for colonial dominance before the Second World War. Although European settlement was perceived as necessary both in terms of domestic social regulation and international competition at the time, state-sponsored settlements in Portuguese Africa were not a reality until the worldwide process of decolonization had started. On the contrary, not only did Portuguese political elites not invest in settlement schemes, but they actually adopted measures to curb migration to the colonies up until 1945, contradicting their imperialist rhetoric at home. The author argues that the contradiction between rhetoric and practice needs to be analysed in light of the growing desire to intensify control over space and people in European settlements in Africa. Barriers to block undesirable migrants from the metropole were only one part of the process of forcing an idealized vision of Portugal and Portugueseness into reality in both the colonies and the metropole. This article concludes that policies and ideas of European Settlement cannot be dissociated from the anti-urban rhetoric and anti-modernizing agenda of Estado Novo.     

Microanalytical study of copper ores from the Chalcolithic settlement of São Pedro (Portugal): Copper production in the south-western Iberian Peninsula

Copper ores recovered at the third millennium bce settlement of São Pedro, Portugal, were characterized by micro-Raman spectroscopy, micro-energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (micro-EDXRF) and micro-particle-induced X-ray emission spectrometry (micro-PIXE). The collection shows the common presence of secondary copper minerals (malachite, pseudomalachite and libethenite) combined with iron oxyhydroxides (hematite and goethite), while arsenic-rich minerals are absent and, therefore, can be excluded as the source of arsenical copper. Overall, these copper ores suggest a primitive technology involving the exploitation of the superficial zone of ore bodies and reliant on the fortuitous finding of arsenic-rich sources to produce the arsenical copper alloy frequently present among metallic collections of the Iberian Peninsula.     

Perceptual images of Conimbriga using High Dynamic Range

It is widely recognized that new technologies can play an important role in the interpretation of our cultural heritage legacy. This has become a powerful tool providing a better understanding of our past, and thereby, allowing us to attain a glimpse of the environments in which our ancestors lived. In this domain, the way we see such reconstructed environments is particularly important in order to establish an accurate interpretation of that historical setting. However, the desired visual accuracy in the representation of any archaeological scenario is strictly related to the technology used to visualize it. High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology encompasses the capacity to produce visual results similar to the visual acuity of the human eye, particularly in extreme lighting conditions, such as bright light or dim environments.