Reassessing Bronze Age funerary practices in Western Iberia: New evidence from the necropolis of Montes Novos (Penafiel, Portugal)

Abstract

1. The archaeological site of Montes Novos (Penafiel, Northern Portugal) was discovered in 1987 and comprised a set of remains associated mainly with Roman-period funerary practices. However, it also included various other ceramic artefacts, either whole or nearly complete, whose techno-morphological features and associations with negative structures allow for their broad relation to a regional Bronze Age necropolis.

The study of the shelved data collected during the excavation work - part of which available at the Museu Municipal de Penafiel (MMPNF) - highlights the continuity of funerary practices at the site, and allows for the consideration of the construction, over time, of a mortuary landscape. The parallels between negative structures associated to certain ceramic containers exhumed there and other synchronous contexts, leveraged by radiocarbon dating, corroborate the hypothesis that these funerary practices date back (at least) to the regional Late Bronze Age.