Although it was not published regularly, it became an outstanding and valuable publication culminating in two volumes of four instalments each, giving a dynamic boost to Portuguese Prehistory, Palaeontology, Archaeology, Anthropology and Ethnography. This was due not only to the value of the studies written by many of his former collaborators who accompanied the editorial team, but also to its material and artistic rigour using the most modern technical-scientific types of archaeological drawing: three-dimensional diagrams, schematic reconstructions, typologies of scale, morphology and decorative representations.

In addition to receiving a public accolade from the national government in 1903, the review was also widely praised in the international arena, meriting from the two French authorities on archaeology – Émile Cartailhac and Salomon Reinach – the attribute of “a review worthy of the most prestigious centres of culture” (A Citânia de Sanfins, 1985, p. 7).

In the pages of this much acclaimed publication, Severo showed his erudition and thirst for knowledge, putting his name to a wide variety of articles about different historical periods and constantly updating readers on the main international advances in archaeology. He put forward his own firm beliefs about ethnic nationalism and Lusitanianism in the debate surrounding the origins of the Portuguese people, using data from ethnology and prehistoric anthropology to illustrate the specificity and antiquity of the Iberian peoples of Indo-European origin in their autochthonous formation. For example, in his search for this connecting link, he cooperated with the British Archaeological Association on the recognition of the authenticity of the archaeological finds in Vila Pouca de Aguiar, especially the examples, rare in Iberian megalithism, of zoomorphic and/or anthropomorphic representations and of alphabetiform characters, establishing parallelisms with similar English archaeological finds. Although he was a prominent figure for his emphasis on the scientific development of Portuguese anthropology, essential for an understanding of national identity, Portuguese history and popular culture, when he later transposed this to the Brazilian experience he was accused of having a neo-colonial view in his speculation about local archaeological, artisanal and architectonic subjects.

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