The Côa Valley, listed as a World Heritage site since 1998, presents over 1200 open-air engraved rock panels. TheArchaeological Park of the Côa Valley has meticulously documented these rock art motifs, employing various techniques including direct tracing processes on the rocks, using both natural and artificial lighting. However, this intensive work is highly demanding, especially considering that many of the rocks are not easily accessible. In the context of the "Open Access Rock Art Repository" (RARAA) project, this paper presents a methodology for the three-dimensional (3D) survey of rocks with rock art motifs, as well as the subsequent production of orthophotos from the resulting 3D models, accomplished through photogrammetry. These orthophotos serve as the foundation for the vector drawing of the motifs. Remarkably, the level of detail captured in these records has shown that most of the motifs are visible and can be accurately represented through the orthophotos. This has significantly reduced the time required for field surveys. However, in certain cases where specific small areas of the panel are affected by challenging lighting conditions, further fieldwork is still necessary, analogous to the direct tracing process. Additionally, this study introduces an information system designed to integrate the vector graphics and the motifs characterisation data; this supports enhanced research in the area and promotes improved open access for potential reuse in new interpretations or integration into future projects. By creating highly detailed 3D models, the authors complement the two-dimensional drawings of the surfaces and ensure the digital preservation of both the rocks and the associated iconography. These records serve as highly detailed digital surrogates that facilitate the monitoring efforts of the rocks and motifs; they also guarantee the availability of valuable resources for future research and analysis, even if natural or deliberate changes occur.

The Côa Valley was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1998 and is considered «the most impor tant open-air rock ar t site of the Paleolithic». The study of the rock art of the Côa Valley revealed that its chronology goes from the Upper Paleolithic to the 20th century. The present work was developed within the RARAA project, funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) «COA / OVD / 0097 / 2019- Rock Art Open Access Repository», with the aim of studying the Iron Age rock art in the Côa Valley and sharing in open access both the data structure, as well as the project data and metadata, images, 3D models, descriptors and vocabularies. With the publication of the registration methodology and the descriptors used, we seek to contribute to improve the use and reuse of data, as well as the development of Linked Open Data, so that it can be localizable and accessible, using FAIR principles (Hollander et al., 2018), and enhancing the interoperability with national and international platforms.

To promote open science and data reuse, it is necessar y to put data in open repositories to ensure its accessibility and permanence. Archaeology data repositories are particularly important, as many of these data sets result from unrepeatable activities and offer almost infinite possibilities for reuse. However, it is not enough to transfer archaeological data to repositories for dissemination and preservation. For data to be Findable, Accessible and Reusable, it is necessary to follow guidelines that ensure the use of an appropriate metadata scheme, persistent identifiers, well–defined vocabularies, procedures to normalize and improve data quality and sustainable file formats. In this work we present the methodology used to record the findings of the coin type and their contexts, as a result from the archaeological works carried out by the Archaeology Unit of the University of Minho and its availability, in open access, in the scientific repository DataRepositóriUM. We are also presenting some examples of visualization and research works carried out on these data sets that, due to their sharing in the repository, can be used not only to reproduce the research that has already been carried out, but also as a support for new research works.

Late Antiquity marks the processes of disarticulation of cultural and technological models of the ancient world and the emergence of those that will characterize Middle Ages and feudal society. During this period the city of Bracara was established as the capital of the province of Gallaecia, becoming the capital of the Suebi kingdom between the 5th and 6th centuries, and politically dependent on Visigothics from 585. These events had a natural impact on the urbanism, economy and society of Bracara, aspects that have been investigated with different degrees of depth. We are particularly interested in the analysis of the potential of ceramics to understand the mechanisms of technological and social change. In this way, we have studied the materials obtained in an archaeological intervention implemented between 2015 and 2016, in 166-168 Frei Caetano Brandão street, in a property located where the Roman city was overlayed by the medieval one.

Archaeology produces large quantities of data, much of it already in a born-digital format. The preservation of these data is vital, as they result from unrepeatable actions, and access to and sharing of these data are the engine of research activities and knowledge development. The creation of archaeological data repositories, in addition to safeguarding data, is a valuable step in supporting research, but it requires a series of work processes, namely data standardisation and use of common nomenclatures, so published data are findable and reusable. The creation of an archaeological data repository for Portugal is a fundamental requirement. It would allow the safeguarding of data resulting from archaeological fieldwork, along with those resulting from research, making them findable, accessible and liable to be used in future research or even to be re-analysed using new technologies and tools. This article presents the evolution of the digitisation of archaeological information in Portugal, the responsibilities for its production and safeguarding, as well as the steps to be followed for its availability in a data repository.

The Iron Age artistic representations identified in the Vale do Côa Archaeological Park (PAVC) lack associated occupation contexts, that is, the stratigraphic contexts necessary for a chronological and interpretative framework. In the absence of evidence of protohistoric habitat in the immediate surroundings of the engravings, we attempted to analyse other sites in the region on which there was evidence of Iron Age occupation. Thus, as part of the RARAA - Open Repository of Rock Art project, funded by FCT COA/OVD/0097/2019, we selected the Alto das Malhadas site to carry out a diagnostic intervention, due to its relative proximity to the mouth of the Côa River, associated with the presence of rock panels with engravings, a pebble with «protohistoric» incised engravings and handmade ceramic materials. In this paper we present the results of this archaeological intervention, where the Alto das Malhadas site has revealed itself as one of the most interesting sites in nor th-eastern Portugal for the characterization of the transition between the III and II millennium BC, and for the understanding of the transition keys from the regional Chalcolithic to a Bronze Age, increasingly linked to the settlement dynamics developed in the Meseta.