«Estradas que caminham»: o Rio Tejo, palco de encontros no ano mil antes de Cristo

• Author(s): Vilaça, Raquel ; Cardoso, João Luís
• Date: 2025
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/19930
• Origin: Repositório Aberto da Universidade Aberta
• Subject(s): Rio Tejo; Vias fluviais; Portugal; Tagus River; Late Bronze Age
• Document Type: Journal article
• Language: Portuguese
• Contributor(s): Repositório Aberto

Description

From the border, when it enters Portuguese territory, to the estuary area, the Tagus is approximately 230 km long. Upstream, in its international stretch, it is a river that runs narrowly and embedded in the plateaus of the Hesperic Massif, while downstream, after the mouth of the Zêzere, it becomes a plain river, entering the Cenozoic Basin and ending in a wide inland estuary near Lisbon. For the period in question, between the 13th and 9th centuries BC, the characteristics of the river were different: the ancient Tagus estuary was wider and deeper, as a result of less silting, which began in Mesolithic times and has not stopped until today. The communities, fully hierarchical and through their elites, established contacts, traveled, produced and exchanged goods of various natures, which circulated between sometimes very distant regions. It is in this particular case that it makes perfect sense to look at the river as a true “road that walks”.