Over the past twenty years, António Valera has been researching ditched enclosures in South Portugal from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, examining how these prehistoric communities expressed their beliefs and their connection to the cosmos through their architecture, landscapes, social practices and funeral rites.

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In this presentation António Valera will be talking about the investigation of a group of prehistoric ditched enclosures in the southwestern Iberian Peninsula. A specific type of enclosure has been documented in the middle Guadiana basin which are characterised by their sinuous, flower-shaped layout, with ditches that have very standardised dimensions. This standardisation of architectural design is often associated with astronomical orientations and with specific practices of opening and filling of the ditches, reflecting aspects of Neolithic social organisation. António Valera will be describing their spatial distribution in the landscape, their chronology and architectural peculiarities, highlighting their cosmological connections and the ways that they express the social organisation of the communities that built and used them.

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António Carlos Valera has a degree in History and in Archaeology, a masters and a PhD in Archaeology (Universities of Lisbon and Porto) and has an extensive list of publications. He has developed his research since 1988 focusing on the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of Central and South Portugal. António coordinates the Global Archaeological Research Programme of the Perdigões complex of ditched enclosures and integrates the research unit of Era Arqueologia Company and the ICArEHB centre of Algarve University. He is now involved in the research of the investment of Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities in monumentality and its impact on social development of the 3rd Millennium BC and in the social breakdown that occurred by the end of that millennium in South-West Iberia.

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