Rethinking Collective Burial in Mediterranean Caves: Middle Bronze Age Grotta Regina Margherita, Central Italy. (18th August 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Skeates, Robin; Beckett, Jessica; Mancini, Daniela; Cavazzuti, Claudio; Silvestri, Letizia; Hamilton, W. Derek; Sayle, Kerry L.; Crowder, Kayla D.; Rolfo, Mario; Angle, Micaela
• Is Part Of: Journal of field archaeology. Volume 46:Number 6(2021)
• Page Start: 382
• Page End: 398
• Publication Date: 2021-08-18
• Subjects: ritual -- mortuary practices -- prehistory -- settlement -- agriculture -- radiocarbon dating -- stable isotopes; Archaeology -- Periodicals; Archaeology -- Methodology -- Periodicals; 930.105
• DOI: 10.1080/00934690.2021.1917137
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0093-4690

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Drawing on the results of new multi-method research in Grotta Regina Margherita—the largest known Middle Bronze Age mortuary cave in west-central Italy (ca. 1650–1450 b.c. )—this article helps to replace the generic idea of "collective burial" with a more precise understanding of how the bodies of the deceased were transformed into potent social, symbolic, and sensuous resources housed in caves. It contextualizes this process within a nuanced understanding of settlement and subsistence practices, in which relatively short-lived and small-scale agricultural communities extended inland to the edge of the Apennine Mountains, ritually demarcating mortuary assemblages in caves in the process.