Crossing bridges, from Mesolithic to new horizons: identifying changes in the Tagus rock art tradition

Sara Garcês

Polytechnic Institute of Tomar; Geosciences Centre University of Coimbra; Instituto Terra e Memória (Portugal)

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0822-5012

saragarces.rockart@gmail.com

Abstract                                                                                                                      Video

 

Crossing bridges, from Mesolithic to new horizons: identifying changes in the Tagus rock art tradition

The Tagus Valley Rock Art Complex covers an area of 120km in length. It has 12 rock art sites that extend roughly from the mouth of the river Ocreza downstream to the valley of the river Erges, upstream, in central Portugal. In 1974 a dam submerged over 90% of this recorded area.

These rock art sites include a set of 1636 rocks with 6988 figures of various typologies, whose chronology extends from the Upper Palaeolithic until the end of the Bronze Age roughly.

Taking into account recent studies, we will present the various methods of documentation used in the Tagus valley since its discovery and we present a proposal of the existence of an important set of figures recorded by the last hunter-gatherers of the region and how to understand the transition to the rock art of the early days of agriculture and pastoralism.

Keywords: Mesolithic; Neolithic; Schematic; Rock Art; Tagus

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