Das Projekt ›Sizandro und Alcabrichel. Zwei kupferzeitliche Siedlungskammern im Vergleich‹ (Torres Vedras, Portugal)

Abstract

The article presents the project „Sizandro and Alcabrichel – two Copper Age settlement environments in comparison“, which is conducted by the German Archaeological Institute since 2006 with
special funding. The project was conceived in the course of the investigation on the fortified settlement of Zambujal and is part of the research cluster „Innovation: Technology – Society.“ Taking
Zambujal and its region as an example, the project investigates how the territory of a Copper Age settlement on the Iberian Peninsula was structured. On the Iberian Peninsula, the Copper Age was a period characterized by numerous innovations, including the construction of fortification structures, the intensification of far reaching trade and the development of new technologies such as in metal production. Within the framework of an international cooperation the University of Iowa (USA), the Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt and other specialists, the relationships between cultural developments and changes in the environment are studied by means of an interdisciplinary approach combining archaeological, geomorphological, palynological, archaeobotanical and archaeozoological studies. In this way, new interpretative models for the third millennium B.C. on the Iberian Peninsula are tested and a reconstruction is developed.