New Discoveries on Late Upper Paleolithic (Final Epigravettian) Funerary Behavior at Arene Candide (Finale Ligure, Italy)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Epigravettian "necropolis" at Arene Candide Cave (Finale Ligure), excavated in the 1940s, yielded a large Late Upper Paleolithic skeletal series consisting of 10 primary burials and six clusters of bones in secondary deposition, accumulated during two distinct phases separated by a few centuries (AMS dates spanning 12,028 – 11,181 and 12,816 – 12,421 cal BP). At the site, older depositions were intentionally moved aside, then bones (especially crania) were selected and re-arranged around the new burial. In one case, two individuals bearing skeletal evidence of congenital dysplasias (possibly X-linked rickets) were put in relation through this funerary behavior, suggesting that disease and relatedness may have been factors determining mortuary gestures. New analyses demonstrate that one child burial excavated in the 1940s, and attributed to the Neolithic, belongs in fact to the terminal Pleistocene (12,098-11,827 cal BP). The spatial position of this burial suggests the presence of additional burials in the unexplored layers of the cave. One adolescent individual unearthed in the 1970s presents a radio-ulnar dysplasia compatible with Madelung deformity, a dominant X-linked condition, further suggesting that congenital disease, possibly due to inbreeding, may have been central during life, and during the representation of death, in the Final Epigravettian.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24317