Nery Delgado, Pioneer of Archaeological Excavation Methods at the Casa da Moura Cave (Portugal) in 1879–1880 JOÃO LUÍS CARDOSO 1,2,3 AND NUNO BICHO 3 1 Universidade Aberta, Lisboa, Portugal 2 Centre of Archaelogical Studies, Oeiras Municipal Council, Portugal 3 Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour (ICArEHB) - Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal 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 world- wide today. Nery Delgado was, thus, a pioneer of contemporary archaeological excavation methods. Keywords: Palaeolithic, Portugal, archaeological excavation, methodology, Nery Delgado, Casa da Moura INTRODUCTION The second half of the nineteenth century was crucial for the development and under- standing of human evolution and prehis- tory, including the elaboration of cultural sequences for European prehistory from the Palaeolithic onwards. That process started much earlier with Christian Thomsen in Denmark (Daniel, 1976; Trigger, 1989), quickly spreading to most of northern and central Europe. It was at this time that human evolution and the presence of early humans was finally accepted, overcom- ing the dominant conservative paradigm championing a short chronology based on Biblical time. Discoveries and scientific innovations were fundamental for that revolution and the acceptance of deep time; publications included, among others, Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830) leading to the acceptance of the concept of Uniformitarianism, the discovery of fossil Neanderthal remains in Forbes Quarry in Gibraltar in 1856 (Menez, 2018), the first publication of the discovery of Neanderthal fossils in Germany (Schaaffhausen, 1858), and the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). With the acknowledgement of deep time and early hominins, prehistoric archaeology jumped ahead, and excavations to recover and reconstruct that early past rapidly increased. The work of many scholars was fundamental during this phase, including that of archaeologists and physical European Journal of Archaeology 2020, page 1 of 17 Copyright © European Association of Archaeologists 2020 doi:10.1017/eaa.2020.55 Manuscript received 13 April 2020, accepted 29 October 2020, revised 11 August 2020