Dating the setting of a late prehistoric statue-menhir at Cruz de Cepos, NE Portugal

Abstract

The emergence of ‘standing stone’ monuments within the European Late Prehistoric landscape is considered to be associated with a pivotal human cultural transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and permanent settlement, being the earliest monuments currently dated by radiocarbon to the 5th millennium BCE. However, many standing stones were first erected, subsequently collapsed, and then re-erected during the following three millennia. The excavation of the site of an apparently in situ statue-menhir at Cruz de Cepos in NE Portugal provided the rare opportunity in Iberian prehistory to apply radiocarbon and luminescence techniques to establish the date of construction. On the basis of the iconography, the standing stone was assigned to a sculptural tradition of north-western and western Iberia, loosely dated to the Early/Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000/1900–1250 BCE). The optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and dosimetry characteristics of quartz extracted from sediment samples taken from locations associated with the socket pit and surrounding backfilling deposits were examined, producing OSL single grain ages at eight locations. Comparison of the OSL and calibrated radiocarbon ages shows very good agreement, with the mid-3rd millennium BCE dates confirming original erection during the Copper Age and not a much later transformation of the monument. These encouraging results indicate that OSL has the potential to provide reliable dating of depositional processes related to the construction process and is suitable for wider application to megalithic monuments of this type.