The archaeologist behind Relica
JoanaCastroTeixeira
Archaeologist, CITCEM researcher, and prize-winner of the Association of Portuguese Archaeologists. She spent years excavating settlements nearly five thousand years old in the Tua Valley, studying what people drew on their objects to say who they were. Now she designs jewellery around the same question.
- 765 m²+excavated under her co-direction at A Pedreira and Regadas
- 2876–2503 BCdates of the preserved contexts at both settlements
- ~50engraved and painted panels studied at the Foz Tua shelter
- 2020Eduardo da Cunha Serrão Archaeology Prize
The research
Two settlements two kilometres apart. Deeply conservative decorative traditions with roots in the Neolithic, and beside them styles found only on that stretch of the Tua. Decoration was not ornament: it was a way of saying “we belong here”.
Relica’s summary of the prize-winning dissertation’s findings, as described in the Association of Portuguese Archaeologists’ editorial.[1]
The field
Where the Tua meets the Douro.
When the Foz Tua dam was built in Trás-os-Montes, Joana was on the teams that excavated what the water was about to cover. Regadas, a small hill above the river, is now partly under the reservoir. The excavations she co-directed there between 2013 and 2015 covered 665 m².[1]
Field record
A career in layers.
- Ctx. 102012
A Pedreira, Alijó
Co-directs the first diagnostic excavation at A Pedreira during archaeological monitoring of the Foz Tua dam: 100 m² excavated. [1]
- Ctx. 092013
Regadas, Alijó
Co-directs the first season at Regadas, a hilltop settlement above the Tua now partly under the reservoir: 140 m² of trenches. [1]
- Ctx. 082014
A Pedreira, phase III
Proposes a new trenching campaign at A Pedreira for the Historical and Ethnological Study of the Tua Valley, carried out in 2014. [1]
- Ctx. 072014–15
Regadas, second season
Co-directs the full excavation of two of the settlement’s platforms: another 525 m². [1]
- Ctx. 062017
The Foz Tua rock shelter
Publishes with Maria de Jesus Sanches, in Portvgalia, a study of a shelter with about fifty engraved and painted panels, occupied from c. 30,000 / 20,000 BP to 4,000 BP. [3]
- Ctx. 052017
The long time of prehistory
Writes the prehistory chapter of the Historical and Ethnological Study of the Tua Valley (EDP / Edições Afrontamento). [1]
- Ctx. 042019
MA in Archaeology
Defends her dissertation at the Faculty of Arts, University of Porto, supervised by Prof. Maria de Jesus Sanches. [1]
- Ctx. 032020
Eduardo da Cunha Serrão Prize
The Association of Portuguese Archaeologists awards the dissertation in the Master’s category. Jury included Profs. José d’Encarnação and Vítor Oliveira Jorge. Presented on 18 June at the Carmo Convent, Lisbon. [2]
- Ctx. 022022
Breaking Borders
Co-edits, with Maria de Jesus Sanches and Maria Helena Barbosa, the volume Romper Fronteiras, Atravessar Territórios (CITCEM). [1]
- Ctx. 012023
AAP Monographs, no. 14
The dissertation is published by the Association of Portuguese Archaeologists, with a cover drawing by her. [1]
From pottery to jewellery.
Joana’s work has always been reading objects: what a repeated motif says about a community, what changes and what stays the same across centuries. Relica brings that eye to jewellery. Every piece starts from a real object, is drawn to scale like a find, and tells you where it comes from.
Sources
As with our pieces, every statement on this page has a source.
- Teixeira, J. C. (2023). Os povoados d’A Pedreira e Regadas no contexto da pré-história recente do Vale do Tua. Monografias AAP, 14. Lisboa: Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses.
- CITCEM (2020). Joana Castro Teixeira wins the Eduardo da Cunha Serrão Archaeology Prize.
- Teixeira, J. C. & Sanches, M. J. (2017). O abrigo rupestre da foz do rio Tua no contexto da arte paleolítica e pós-paleolítica do Noroeste da Península Ibérica. Portvgalia, Nova série, 38, 9–48.