"Melting the power" The foundry area of Fraga dos Corvos (Macedo de Cavaleiros,...

• Author(s): Martinez, João Carlos de Sena ; Ventura, José M. Q. ; Carvalho, Hélder ; Araújo, M. Fátima ; Figueiredo, Elin ; Valério, Pedro
• Date: 2010
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/9800
• Origin: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa
• Subject(s): Arqueologia; Bronze Médio; Metalurgia; Fraga dos Corvos
• Document Type: Part of book or chapter of book
• Language: English

Description

Fraga dos Corvos is a Bronze Age habitat site recently studied and located in the north-western versant of Serra de Bornes, Eastern Trás-os-Montes (Macedo de Cavaleiros, Bragança, Portugal). The site visually controls the Macedo de Cavaleiros basin. It is in the main traditional passes into and out of this basin that have been found the deposits of halberd copper blades which gave the name to the so called Carrapatas type of the Iberian Early Bronze Age Atlantic halberds. The results of the first four campaigns at Fraga dos Corvos Early/Middle Bronze Age habitat site, namely the excavation of its Huts 4 and 6 foundry area,provide the opportunity to discuss the relations between the socio-economic constraints of metal production and the symbolic of power in northern Portugal emerging Bronze Age societies. We argue that metal production in these societies is an uneconomic process which provides the means for the symbolic expression of status, otherwise difficult in societies with a very conservative and modest economy, close to what Shalins called the “domestic mode of production”.