Browsing by Author "Almeida, Nelson J."
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- Faunal remains associated with human cremations: The chalcolithic pits 16 and 40 from the Perdigões ditched enclosures (Reguengos de Monsaraz, Portugal)Publication . Almeida, Nelson J.; Carlos Valera, AntónioDifferent funerary behaviors are recorded in the Iberian Peninsula during Late Prehistory. Cremation is not the most common practice and the association between human cremains and fauna is even scarcer. We present two Chalcolithic pits (pits 16 and 40) from the Perdigoes ditched enclosures, Reguengos de Monsaraz, Portugal. Humans were accompanied by animals and other votive materials such as arrowheads, ivory anthropomorphic figurines, and marble idols. Differences between the two contexts are discussed regarding the selection of faunal anatomical parts, the abundance of species, and the manipulation of remains. The results obtained were compared to previously published data from anthropological analysis. Burning damage intensity is different among pits and between humans and fauna. Hence, this suggests that the latter also resulted from diverse practices, including the possible selection of animal body portions for cremation and/or the deposition of selected burned bones or even related to patterns existing in the contexts of the provenance of the cremated materials before the cremation events.
- Human–deer relations during late prehistory: The zooarchaeological data from central and southern Portugal in perspectivePublication . Almeida, Nelson J.; Guinot, Catarina; Ribeiro, Inês; Barreira, João; Basílio, Ana CatarinaHuman–animal relations have been a fruitful research topic worldwide. The importance of deer in hunter–gatherer societies is undeniable, with cervids being commonly found in archaeological and past artistic records, with a notable amount of information recovered in the Iberian Peninsula. This relevance continues during Late Prehistory, but the attempt to discuss cervids under broader perspectives and based on different types of data is not as common. We intend to approach human–deer relations in Central and Southern Portuguese Late Prehistory by considering the zooarchaeological records, both deer abundance in faunal spectra and their presence in “meaningful” assemblages and structured depositions, as well as the use of deer and deer body parts in other socio–cultural and ideological practices. The synthesis of available data shows that human–deer relations changed through time and space, with different abundances related to hunting depending on chronology and geography. The use of deer or their body parts as a resource of symbolic nature also varied, being included in food-sharing events, offerings, structured depositions, and graphic representations. Changeability is part of the different relationships, ontologies, and cosmogonies that humans and deer developed in the Late Prehistoric relational world.
- A multidisciplinary study of Iberian Chalcolithic dogsPublication . Blaschikoff, Ludmilla; Daza-Perea, Arantxa; Requicha, João; Detry, Cleia; Rasteiro, Rita; Guimarães, Sílvia; Ureña, Irene; Serra, Octávio; Schmidt, Ryan; Valera, António Carlos; Almeida, Nelson J.; Porfírio, Eduardo; Santos, Ana Beatriz; Delicado, Cátia; Simões, Fernanda; Matos, José António; Amorim, Isabel Rosário; Petrucci-Fonseca, Francisco; Davis, Simon J.M.; Muñoz-Mérida, Antonio; Götherström, Anders; Fernández-Rodríguez, Carlos; Cardoso, João Luis; Ginja, Catarina; Pires, Ana ElisabeteDomesticated dogs have been present in the Iberian Peninsula long before other domesticated species, back to the late Palaeolithic period. Their origin is still uncertain, but dogs were already well established during the Chalcolithic period (ca. 5000-4000 BP). This study employed a multidisciplinary approach comprising osteometric, radiographic and palaeogenomic analyses to characterize Chalcolithic Iberian Canis remains. Two Chalcolithic archaeological sites - Leceia, Oeiras, in Portugal, and El Caset ' on de la Era, Villalba de los Alcores, Valladolid, in Spain - were the main focus of this study. Osteometric and odontometric data from eleven other sites in Iberia were also included. Osteometric results show signs of phenotypic variability, likely the result of human-driven selective pressure. Dental radiographic and dental wear analyses allowed age at death estimation for four individuals (two juvenile and two adults). Three Chalcolithic Iberian dogs had their mitogenomes resequenced and the mitochondrial DNA analysis allowed to assign each individual to two of the major known haplogroups - A and C. Molecular sex infered by the chromosomeX/chromosome1 coverage ratio allowed to identify one female and two males. This study unveils some aspects of the Iberian Chalcolithic dogs: these dogs already exhibited various morphotypes whose profiles might be associated to the performance of certain tasks, as well as mitogenomes of two distinct lineages that help tracking the evolutionary paths of Iberian dogs.