THE AVECASTA CAVE-SETTLEMENT

Working Camp is taking place in Central Portugal. The archaeological site is unique: a vast (hall-shaped) cave, its associated karst doline (on a densely wild forested hill). The excavation is meticulous, dismounting layer by layer the ancient dwelling ground-surfaces with their domestic and artisanal structures and implies a plural scientific approach, where natural sciences, physical-chemistry (archaeometry) and geomatics (3D registration and virtualization) join the traditional archaeological disciplines.
The work implies: meticulous digging in clayey sand (with fine tools, such as trowels and brushes); drawing sketches (for the occurrence of the findings) on top of photographic prints of excavated soil surfaces; collecting ancient artifacts on bags with adequate labeling and packaging (according to fragility); taking photos of the findings in situ; Sieving the sediments (collected in buckets) under hose water-jet (on a protected shadowed sieving installation, just outside the cave) for collecting the interesting small objects (previously unnoticed during digging); cleaning artifacts and unique identification labelling; Screening micro-fossil assemblages (seeds, charcoal, micro-mammal bones).