The hillfort of Vila Nova S. Pedro is located on a plateau approximately 100 meters high, with excellent visibility, forming a natural defense that would have been one of the attractions for the populations that settled there.
It is close to a watercourse, the Almoster river (a tributary of the Maior river and this tributary of the Tagus), which would have been the main means of communication for the inhabitants of the village.
Classified as a National Monument since 1971, the fortified village of Vila Nova de São Pedro, known as «Castro», was identified in 1936 and was systematically excavated by Afonso do Paço and Eugénio Jalhay between 1937-1967.
In these excavation campaigns, three wall lines were identified and the study of the materials and structures found allows us to place their occupation, by agrometallurgical communities, in the Chalcolithic period – 3rd millennium BC (3,200 – 2,000 BC) until the beginning of the Bronze Age.