Estudo bioarqueológico do Túmulo Megalítico de Santa Rita (Algarve, Portugal)

This work presents new contributions to the understanding of the biological and cultural aspects of the population that erected and used the Megalithic Tomb of Santa Rita, located in the municipality of Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Portugal. The bones studied in this research came from the funerary chamber, which was used as a secondary and collective funerary space during the Chalcolithic, between the end of the 4th millennium BCE (Before the Common Era) and the second quarter of the 3rd millennium BCE, corresponding to the first cycle of occupation of that monument. Besides the taphonomic process of modifying the human osteological estate, the demographic, morphological and paleopathological characteristics of the inhumed population were analyzed, as well as the funerary ritual practiced in the ossuary.