Submitted to ArchNet November 1995
To archeologists, rock art experts and all those who stood for the
preservation
of the Côa Valley rock art:
On November 7 [1995], during the submission to Parliment of his Government's program, the new prime-minister, Antonio Guterres, winner of the October 1st general election, announced the suspension of construction work at the Foz Côa dam until the value of the archaeological heritage it would flood was adequately established. He also made it clear that, if confirmation of its worldwide importance was obtained, as he hoped, construction of the dam would be abandoned altogether.
The position of the new Portuguese authorities on this matter has since evolved very rapidly. On November 17, a group of seven cabinet ministers visited the site to explain the new policy to the local population. The worldwide importance of the archaeological heritage was assumed and, accordingly, it was announced that the dam was to be definitively canceled. It was also announced that preparations for transferring the dam further downstream, to the Sabor river, would begin immediately, and that the Côa valley was to be turned into an archaeological park. An integrated plan of regional development centered on the establishment of that park was going to be prepared under the coordination of the Minister for Economic and Territorial Planning. It was promised that this plan would be completed within two months and that work towards implementing it would begin immediately after its approval. Meanwhile, construction work at the location where the dam was to be built would continue for about a year, for consolidation purposes and landscape reconstruction.
These decisions were subject to parlimentary debate on November 24. Mira Amaral, the Minister for Industry of the previous government and EDP's [the Portuguese electric utility building the dam] principal supporter, and now a member of Parliment, condemned them. Invoking once more the results obtained by the dating "experts" hired by EDP, he attacked archaeology as a non-scientific field with a "wishful thinking" approach towards reality and said that construction of the dam should be completed. In a devastating reply, the new Minister for Culture, Manuel Carrilho, attacked the attitude of Mira Amaral and the preceding administration towards the Côa dam issue: instead of receiving the news of the discovery of the Paleolithic open engravings as a justified motive for celebration, as is the rule in civilized nations, they had turned it into a nightmare, wasting a whole year trying to come up with clumsy tricks that would rescue the dam project. This attitude was classified as "ineptly demagogic", for trying to convince peole that the impossible (building the dam while, at the same time, preserving the engravings) was feasible; as "uncultivated to a horrifying degree", for ignoring the basic premises of archaeological investigation and site preservation; and as inspired by a "technocratic barbarism" that had shocked the Portuguese public, especially the young, and the world at large.
These statements were wholeheartedly supported by the Portuguese archaeological community. All the more so since the new government announced, at the same time, a major reorganization of the field and appointed Vitor Oliveira Jorge, a professor from the University of Oporto and one of the leaders of the "Stop the Dam" movement, as president of a new government agency, answering directly to the minister, that from now on will take care of the country's archaeological heritage.
The national and international protest to stop the Côa dam and
preserve its
rock art has won, therefore, a tremendous victory. I should like to remind
you, however that all these decisions carry the implication, for the
Portuguese taxpayer, of a loss of some $150 million (USD) already spent in the
work so far carried out at the dam. These were not easy decisions, therefore,
and I believe that the new Portuguese authorities are to be strongly commended
for their vision. What they have decided to do deserves the support of
archaeologists and rock art researchers from all over the world; much as what
the previous administration almost did, with the unfortunate help of the
"direct daters", deserved our strongest protests. If you wish to manifest
your views on the above, please write to the following addresses:
António Guterres
Primeiro-Ministro
Rua da Imprensa à Estrela, 2
1200 Lisboa
PORTUGAL
Manuel Carrilho
Ministro da Cultura
Palácio da Ajuda
1300 Lisboa
PORTUGAL
João Zilhão Professor, Department of History, Faculdade de
Letras de Lisboa
President, Pre-History Section, Associação dos
Arqueólogos Portugueses
Member,Permanent Council, Union Internationale des Sciences Pré and
Proto-Historiques (UISPP)
HTML and Images courtesy of:
Bill Barnett, American Museum of Natural History