By using our site, you agree to our collection of information through the use of cookies. To learn more, view our Privacy Policy. To browse Academia. This chapter concerns Middle Bronze Age MBA archaeology in Central Italy and focuses on the interpretive potential of faunal remains towards improving our understanding of the human uses of caves in this period. Building on a critical review of all published Bronze Age caves of Central Italy where zooarchaeological research has been carried out, this paper demonstrates how some of the limitations of previous approaches can be overcome by pushing bioarchaeological research towards a more social perspective Marciniak ; Russell Three new studies carried out on as many cave sites investigated by the authors are presented here.
The aims are, firstly to provide an assessment of the relations between bioarchaeology β mostly zooarchaeology β and ritual in Bronze Age Central Italy and, secondly, and more importantly, to propose a more in-depth approach to the study of bioarchaeological remains, which will be beneficial for the wider interpretation of all sites in the area. This thesis is about the Middle Bronze Age MBA: BC caves of central Italy, and the faunal and plant remains found inside them using the combined approach of contextual archaeology and social bioarchaeology.
I draw new inferences from these ecofactual remains, which are crucial to improving our understanding of human lifeways in the Apennine region of the Italian peninsula.
This work is much needed both in the field of cave archaeology especially in relation to the Italian area and in that of bioarchaeology. Here, traditional methodological issues, such as a tendency to ignore the ritual aspects of cave deposits, have produced substantial biases in the interpretations of the subsistence strategies.
By analysingth The archaeology of central Italy is characterised by over a hundred Middle Bronze Age second millennium BC caves, most yielding evidence of cultic practice, including burial. The majority of these sites were excavated decades ago, with unsystematic investigations often resulting in incomplete documentation and publication.
