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PORTUGAL: Archaeological site could become protected park
Updated: 10-Jan-2008
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The 24,000-year-old skeleton of a Homo Sapiens-Neanderthal mixed race found near Leiria, central Portugal.
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chris@portugalresident.com
AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL site near Leiria, where the grave of a 24,000-year-old skeleton of a Homo Sapiens-Neanderthal mixed race, sub species of man was discovered, could become a major tourist attraction.
Both the Portuguese government and the Câmara Municipal de Leiria are pushing for the creation of a Nature Park at Lapedo, including a new interactive archaeological museum near the site where the ceremonial burial site of the Lapedo child was discovered 10 years ago.
The discovery shook up the archaeological world because it proved that an early species of mankind, the Neanderthals, | 
The Lapedo Valley
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thought to have become extinct in a battle of survival with modern Homo Sapiens man, had in fact survived by cross mating.
The creation of the Lapedo Nature Park, Parque Natural do Lapedo, could be the next step to protect the site where the remains of the child were discovered in a valley wall.
The suggestion was made by the President of the Câmara Municipal of Leiria, Isabel Damasceno, at the inauguration of a more modest and temporary museum to the discovery, Centro de Interpretação do Abrigo do Lagar Velho.
It is hoped that the museum and the larger one planned, which is close to the valley where the remains were found, will help revolutionise understanding as to how human beings evolved over several hundred thousand years.
The Câmara has already expressed the intention to perhaps site the new archaeological museum and visitors centre in the former Santo Agostinho Convent in the city of Leiria.
UNESCO
Francisco Almeida, an archaeologist attached to Portugal’s Higher Archaeological Institute IGESPAR, Instituto de Gestão do Património Arquitectónico Arqueológico Superior, goes even further by stating that the discovery was one of the finds of the century which justified both the Lapedo Valley and the neighbouring Ribeira das Chitas Valley being designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
However, the application would have to be done in conjunction with other sites of Stone and Palaeolithic Age but that it could take up to 10 years to put forward the arguments in the application.
Before formally presenting the application, more thorough investigation of the site for evidence of a wider settlement would have to be carried out as one grave alone was not sufficient to justify the area being awarded UNESCO status.
The Lapedo Child, believed to be the remains of a boy aged around four, was discovered in December 1998 and opened up a can of worms in prevailing theory that Neanderthal man became extinct because Homo Sapiens moving across Europe was a more intelligent hunter-gatherer and social organiser.
“Actually, there were a number of different theories as to what happened to Neanderthal man but none of them entirely held water,” says Professor João Zilhão, an archaeological expert at the UK’s University of Bristol.
Professor Zilhão criticised the Portuguese government for not allocating the necessary funds for extensive, prolonged research and excavation and said that was why many talented Portuguese archaeologists like himself had to go abroad.
“There’s a lack of strategy in our country,” he said, an opinion echoed by Francisco Almeida who said that Portugal was one of the countries in Europe that had the most possibilities to exploit its rich archaeological heritage given the amount of tourists it attracted.
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