The Enclosed Settlement of \" Castro da Columbeira \" (Bombarral, Portugal): a preliminary view

To the South of the typhonic valley of Caldas da Rainha, in the municipality of Bombarral, is located the settlement of Columbeira corresponding to a Middle Chalcolithic (without Bell Beaker) chronology.The settlement was discovered by José Leite de Vasconcellos in the beginning of the XXth Century, having fallen into oblivion until 1963. In the same year, the archeological site was rediscovered by Jorge de Almeida Monteiro, Abel Viana and Octávio da Veiga Ferreira, a team that would be responsible for the first archeological intervention on the site.  Later on, between the years 1992 and 1997, João Ludgero Gonçalves was the director of a series of archeological campaigns, from which derives the archaeological materials here presented.‘Castro Columbeira’ revealed a significant variety of faunal resources, lithics and ceramics that were considered in the present study, being its preliminary results now presented as well as the definition of the first interpretive hypotheses on the local strategies of economic exploitation followed by the possibility of a regional network of settlements.Taking into account the scarce amount of current studies on this settlement and the surrounding area, it becomes essential to do further investigation on the site in order to clarify its role in the Chalcolithic Estremadura.