Nery Delgado, Pioneer of Archaeological Excavation Methods at the Casa da Moura Cave (Portugal) in 1879–1880

Abstract

Nery Delgado was a key figure in the development of archaeological methods applied to prehistoric sites in Portugal within European archaeology at the end of the nineteenth century. He was the first in Europe to use a grid in his 1879–1880 excavation at the Casa da Moura cave (Óbidos, Portugal). The grid divided the cave into twenty-eight sectors excavated independently and, in each, all archaeological and bioanthropological finds were documented and marked with labels recording depth and excavation units. The 3D information obtained by Nery Delgado features among late nineteenth-century attempts at recording contextual data, a precursor of archaeological methods of data gathering that are used worldwide today. Nery Delgado was, thus, a pioneer of contemporary archaeological excavation methods.