The Upper Paiva valley is mainly an upland complex rising up to 1000
m, here and there cut by the river Paiva and its tributary streams that
configure valleys around 600 to 300 m high. The resources are scanty
and the landscape is marked by the nudity of the granite rock and the
green spots of pinelands, where the tilled fields search for the fertile
lands and are organized around settlements.
With the aim to study the settlement pattern – and its evolution from
roman times to early middle ages – was made an inventory using extensive
archaeological methods. In this text is analysed only the data
of rock carved graves and how these monuments can be related to coeval
settlement (from 7th century on).
The support for this work is a sample of eighty nine rock carved graves,
distributed by thirty three different sites. After an introduction, to
the region and methodology, it’s made a presentation of the gathered
data: typology, situation of the tombs, orientation and setting. Than the
results are discussed and confronted to other region’s studies.
One of the conclusions drawn is that the Upper Paiva presents some
singularities that may be related to it’s peripheral character, while
other traits approach it to the rest of the known groups of rock carved
graves.
In what settlement is concerned, by admitting the possibility of relation
between these funerary vestiges and early medieval peopling, is
revealed a dispersed pattern, in part coincident with the known reality
for the previous period. The data points to the making of the rock cut
tombs at the margin of a parochial organisation, that is, a situation of
absent or remote parish leading to an informal organisation of the cult
to the dead.
