Mora Cavorso Cave: a collective underground burial in Neolithic central Italy

Mora Cavorso Cave, located in South-Eastern Lazio, is a multi-tunnel cave displaying a complex stratigraphy. Its inner rooms revealed the presence of one of the most important funerary deposits of Early Neolithic central Italy. Around 30 individuals of all ages and both sexes, mostly chaotically piled for natural and anthropic reasons, were found along with grave goods and ornaments, whose materials come from different parts of Italy. This key deposit was object of a wide range of analyses, including isotopes and DNA studies, which helped unveil a sliver of life and death of the Neolithic communities of the Apennines

Bioarchaeological remains as indicators of costly signalling: two case studies from the Middle Bronze Age of Central Italy

This paper concerns the role of costly signalling in the ritual expressions of Middle Bronze Age human culture of Central Italy. A wide overview of the existing literature and the accurate examination of recent case studies enabled us to demonstrate that costly signalling is especially identifiable through the study of the ecofactual remains found in caves that are central ritual sites in Apennine protohistory. The dozens of perinatal domesticates from Grotta Mora Cavorso and the quintals of burnt seeds from Grotta di Pastena, had they not been considered in their burial and strongly ritual framework – which has been identified with certainty also thanks to these ecofacts – could have provided only a general and highly unreliable palaeoenvironmental and palaeoeconomic subsistence reconstruction. The same remains, analysed in a social perspective, have allowed us to recognize a complex set of symbolic practices and to clarify some possible features of the society that performed these rituals

The faunal assemblage from La Sassa cave (Latium, Italy): Environmental perspective of a Late Pleistocene cave hyena - Brown bear den

La Sassa cave (Sonnino, central Italy) is a recently investigated MIS 3 site of southern Latium, a region characterised by a large number of caves and open-air Late Pleistocene sites. This paper describes the large faunal assemblage discovered at La Sassa cave, providing taphonomic and stratigraphic analyses which allow us to interpret the outer rooms of the cave as a cave hyena communal den and the inner area as a possibly coeval brown bear hibernating shelter. Archaeological evidence also indicates a human frequentation of the surrounding area occurred. In addition, a first environmental reconstruction of the area is provided based on faunal data. Results suggest a composite hilly landscape, with forests and grasslands interspersed by scrubland areas, rocky bands and wetlands, between the Pontine Plain and the modest peaks of the Ausoni Mountains. This contribution improves our palaeoecological perspective of the area around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum with intense human occupation

The wolf from Grotta Mora Cavorso (Simbruini mountains, Latium) within the evolution of Canis lupus L., 1758 in the Quaternary of Italy

This paper describes the Late Pleistocene and Holocene remains of Canis lupus from Grotta Mora Cavorso (Latium, Italy), with a particular focus on the anatomically connected skeleton found in Layer 7, radiometrically dated to over 43,500 years BP and correlated with Marine Isotopic Stage 3. The studied specimens were compared with wolf remains collected from numerous Middle and Late Pleistocene and Holocene sites in Italy, France, Austria and Slovenia. Additional comparisons were made with a sample of the extant Apennine wolf, Canis lupus italicus. The Late Pleistocene and Holocene wolves from Grotta Mora Cavorso range between 6 and 10 years of age at death, 64–75 cm in height at the withers, 150–162 cm in body length, and 30–39 kg in body mass. They are morphometrically close to Canis lupus maximus, a Late Pleistocene chrono-subspecies of France. The late Middle and Late Pleistocene wolves of Italy show a great variability in body size. This prevents the recognition of a progressive increase of size in Italian wolves with any resulting biochronological implications. The Holocene reduction in body size of the extant Apennine wolf was more recent than previously thought, probably because of genetic isolation, and the rarefaction and subsequent local extinction of large-sized prey, such as red deer. In addition, the 6 year old anatomically connected specimen discovered at Grotta Mora Cavorso, probably a female, allows some considerations on the functional morphology of Pleistocene wolves

The Late Pleistocene faunal assemblage from Cava Muracci (Latium, Italy): Palaeoenvironmental implications for coastal central Italy during MIS 3|Assemblage faunique du Pléistocène supérieur de Cava Muracci (Latium, Italie). Implications paléoenvironnementales pour l'Italie centrale côtière pendant le stade MIS 3

Palaeoenvironmental information on Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3) coastal Latium is sparse, mainly based on studies of individual faunal assemblages or long pollen records from lake sediments, often of insufficient resolution to aid in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. This study describes in detail the Late Pleistocene faunal assemblage from layers SU11 and SU12 of Cava Muracci (Cisterna di Latina, central Italy), the first of which is a partially-preserved hyena den. The first multi-disciplinary palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of coastal Latium between 34–44 ka BP is provided combining palaeoecological inferences from a previous pollen analytical study of hyena coprolites with the palaeontological study described here. The results indicate a temperate climate and a landscape characterised by the coexistence of at least three habitats within a short distance between the coastline and the inland mountains, suitable for a wide variety of species. A wooded hilly area populated by wolfs, aurochs, cervids and other small vertebrates; wide steppe and grasslands inhabited by wild horses, rhinoceros and cave hyenas; lastly, wetland habitats along coasts and rivers populated by wild boars and several amphibians and reptiles

Isotopic reconstruction of the subsistence strategy for a Central Italian Bronze Age community (Pastena cave, 2nd millennium BCE)

The Pastena cave is located in central Italy, and its best-preserved sector is Grotticella W2, which is dated radiometrically to the Early-Middle Bronze Age. The aim of this paper is to explore human diet, animal husbandry, and plant management, analysing the findings there discovered. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis was carried out on 40 charred seeds, six faunal remains, and four human individuals, investigating the whole bio-archaeological material available. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first papers presenting stable isotope analysis on carpological remains dated to the Italian Early-Middle Bronze Age. The obtained results are consistent with a diet based on terrestrial protein, mainly on plants, and secondly on animal products. The data suggest that plants, especially broad beans, were partially subjected to human management, while livestock was managed through different husbandry strategies. The cooperation between archaeological studies and molecular analysis allows us to contribute to clarifying the economic strategies for a Central Italian community in a scenario that is still poor in published data