Origins of the Portuguese

American Journal of Physical Anthropology ORIGINS OF THE PORTUGUESE A. A. MENDES CORR~A Professor of Anthropology, Faculty of Science, Oporto University I Geographically speaking, Portugal is only a portion of the great Iberian peninsular unit, without precise ethnic or geographical bound- aries. But the development of its people, and eventually their political independence, with consequently increased isolation, have favored the individualization of this ethnic aggregate in customs, language, and national feeling; moreover, nine centuries of history furnish the Portuguese nation with a firm traditional basis. There are, however, as will here be shown, also archeological and anthro- pological reasons for Portuguese unity. To outline these we must go back to epochs in which naturally no trace existed as yet in the region in question of any national solidarity. Regrettably our knowledge of the pre-historic and proto-historic times of Portugal is still full of gaps and obscurities. If, notwith- standing this and what has recently been written on the subject we cannot see the roots of the Portuguese nation in the sedentary epi- Paleolithic fishermen of Mugem, we may safely nevertheless recognize as our ancestors some of the Neolithic tribes who constructed the dolmens and the first castros, who inhabited the caverns, and who with rudimentary artistic feeling tried to represent their deities on curious plaques. These precursors of the historic Portuguese became in the course of time admixed with migrants of various origins, and the first trace of national individuality may perhaps be seen in the similar- ity of some of their industries in the proto-historic times. It is however only when Rome began to dominate the country that national 117 AMER. JOUR. PAYS. ANTHROP., VOL. I1 NO. 2 118 A. A. MENDES CORR~A feeling shows itself, primarily in a heroic group resistance; and the very Romans who after the conquest organize the government and institutions of the country, give strength and shape to this feeling of individuality, which manifests itself eventually in a united mass- the Portuguese nation. I1 The Primitive Inhabitants of the Territory: Tertiary Man in Portugal. --In 1866 the geologist Carlos Ribeiro, in a study on the territory of the basins of the Tagus and Sado, alluded to silexes and quartzites that he found in ancient deposits there and that seemed to be the result of human work. In 1871 in a memoir to the Lisbon Academy of Science Ribeiro included nearly all these layers in the Tertiary and especially in the Miocene. The greater part of the supposed instru- ments came from the stretch of Miocene strata that extend northward from Carregado to Cercal, near the declivities of the chain of hills that passes in Alemquer. The Miocene conglomerations of the Tagus and Sad0 basins were deposited at the bottom of a Tertiary lake that once occupied the whole of that vast region. The first layers, which were contemporary with the igneous and irruptive action of the Lisbon basalts, in some pIaces became later submerged by the sea and covered by maritime Miocene formations. These latter have not furnished any implements, but Carlos Ribeiro found numerous “eoliths ” in the limestones, marls and lacustrine sandstone of the middle and upper Miocene. These finds were discussed at the International Congresses for Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology at Brussels in 1872, at Lisbon in 1880, and at Paris in 1889, as well as before the Prehistoric Society of France in 1905; and although no one hesitated to classify the geological layers as lacustral formations of the upper Miocene, opinions differed as to the attribution of the objects found to these strata, and as to the possibility of a presence at that remote time of an intelligent human or near-human being-though Mortillet did not hesitate to prematurely call this hypothetical being the Homosimius Ribeiroi. The author examined the specimens in question, which are preserved in the Museum of the Geological Service at Lisbon, and verified in various the presence of “ percussion conchoids.” But these silexes are very rough and it is hard to regard them as having a form precon- ceived by an intelligent, human or nearly human brain. Moreover, ORIGINS OF THE PORTUGUESE 119 their paleoethnological authenticity is doubtful, since it has been shown that eddies produced by currents’of water, the pressure of the soil, atmospherical influences, and perhaps still other agencies, may produce pseudo-forms that are not inferior to these supposed authentic “eoliths.” In the actual state of our science, the Tertiary Homosimius Ribeiroi cannot be regarded as more than a bold conjecture, without sufficient documentary proof. Paleolithic Man.-The Skull of the Arieiro Valley.-The Mandible of the Grotto of Furninha.-While many of the data referring to the Portuguese Paleolithic undoubtedly need revision, we may nevertheless consider the existence of man in Portuguese territory in the Paleolithic age as established, and it is also permissible to note that among the discovered sites relating to this period those of the inferior Paleolithic seem to prevail. The greater number of these sites are on the surface of the soil and refer to the inferior or middle Paleolithic, containing either Chellean, Acheulean, or Mousterian industries, or all these together. Many of these sites have not as yet been properly explored, and some, as those in Serra de Brunheira (near Chaves), Castelo do Quejo (Oporto), Ervilha (Oporto), Fontela (near Figueira da Fae), those in the neighborhood of Leiria, etc., furnished each only one or two worked objects of probable or proved authenticity. The most important of these ancient sites in the north of the country is that at Mealhada (near Coimbra), discovered also by Carlos Ribeiro and studied by Joaquim Fontes. Here in Quaternary alluvia which contained fossil remains of Equus, Elephas cfr. antiquus, Cervus elaphus, and of the vegetal Trapa natans-contemporaries of the glaciers in the Mondego Valley-a coup de poing (at a depth of 3.3 meters), a scraper (at 2.4 meters), another scraper (at 4.2 meters depth) and a blade, were discovered, and all are considered as being either of Chellean or Acheulean age; but the particulars about the layer from which each object came are rather obscure. No skeletal remains of man have come to light in this locality. The southern half of Portugal and especially the neighborhood of Lisbon, is even richer in Paleolithic stations, among which we may refer briefly to the following: In the grotto of Furninha (Peniche), Nery Delgado discovered a paleolithic deposit (besides an important neolithic one) , that furnished some stone implements, various animal fossils, a bone ornament or amulet, and a fragment of a human mandible. According to Harl6, 120 A. A. MENDES CORR~A the fauna of Furninha cave was composed of Ursus arctos, Hyaena striata, Feh catus ferus, Felis lynx, Felis pardus, and Rhinoceros Merckii. Besides a Chellean coup de poing, there were found here but on another level a point, a blade and three scrapers of Mousterian type, accompanying the fragment of lower jaw; and still on other levels were found chips of bone, a bone amulet or ornament and a sling-stone. Some other flint objects that Nery Delgado also produced from this locality, were not implements, in Joaquim Fontes’ opinion. In opposition to Harl6’s view Nery Delgado considers the contemporaneity of man and the striped hyaena in the grotto of Furninha as established. Near the Spanish-Portuguese frontier, in the neighborhood of the cemetery of Arronches, the French archeologist Henri Breuil discovered a short time ago an important Paleolithic site which is in an ancient terrace that dominates the actual river Caia by at least 20 meters. At a moderate depth in the mass of earth there is a Chellean industry of rough coups de poing, and another Aucheulean, over the former, marked by chips, disks and coups de poing. So far this station has given us no part of the human skeleton. In the district of Lisbon itself, Vergilio Corr6a counts no less than thirty-eight Paleolithic sites. They are in general, however, repre- sented by superficial deposits, and the authenticity of some is perhaps questionable. If an the basis of the archeological data the existence of man in Portuguese territory in the Paleolithic age must be considered as verified, nothing definite can as yet be said as to the physical type of these remote inhabitants. Has the H. neaderthalensis, who left his traces in Bafiolas and Forbes-Quarry in neighboring Spain, extended as far as Portugal? Nothing yet proves it. Should we admit that the lower Paleolithic civilization penetrated into the Iberian peninsula from the south and was of African origin, then the first settlers in the territory ought to have come by the same route and been of the same origin; but we are here in the field of nothing but hypotheses. In the Arieiro Valley (Vila Nova da Rainha), a skull was found at a depth of 3.7 meters and was classified as probably Quaternary, but it was not accompanied by any implement or fossil that would allow its paleoethnological age to be determined. It was sub-brachycephalic and much like the Furfooz skull No. 2. Excluding this specimen on account of its doubtful chronology, the lower jaw from the grotto of Furninha, which Nery Delgado considers as probably belonging to a ORIGINS OF THE PORTUGUESE 121 child, remains the only document till now of the human type in the Portuguese Quaternary. Reduced however to only a part of the ascending ramus and one condyle, this specimen offers but little of interest to physical anthropology. Epipuleolithic Mun.-The Skeletons of Mugem.-Of all the discoveries relating to Portuguese prehistory, the most notable are undoubtedly those of the kitchenmiddens of the Tagus Valley, and that both on account of the characteristics of the industrial remains and because of the number and particularities of the skeletons that accompanied the artifacts.

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