Detailed taphonomic and skeletal analyses document the diverse and often unusual burial practices employed by European Neolithic populations. In the Upper Chamber at Scaloria Cave in southern Italy, the remains of some two dozen individuals had been subjected to careful and systematic defleshing and disarticulation involving cutting and scraping with stone tools, which had left their marks on the bones. In some cases these were not complete bodies but parts of bodies that had been brought to the cave from the surrounding area. The fragmented and commingled burial layer that resulted from these activities indicates complex secondary burial rites effecting the transition from entirely living to entirely dead individuals.

Cleaning the dead. Neolithic ritual processing of human bone at Scaloria Cave, Italy / J., Robb; E. S., Elster; E., Isetti; C. J., Knusel; Tafuri, MARY ANNE; A., Traverso. - In: ANTIQUITY. - ISSN 0003-598X. - STAMPA. - 89:343(2015), pp. 39-54. [10.15184/aqy.2014.35]

Cleaning the dead. Neolithic ritual processing of human bone at Scaloria Cave, Italy

TAFURI, MARY ANNE;
2015

Abstract

Detailed taphonomic and skeletal analyses document the diverse and often unusual burial practices employed by European Neolithic populations. In the Upper Chamber at Scaloria Cave in southern Italy, the remains of some two dozen individuals had been subjected to careful and systematic defleshing and disarticulation involving cutting and scraping with stone tools, which had left their marks on the bones. In some cases these were not complete bodies but parts of bodies that had been brought to the cave from the surrounding area. The fragmented and commingled burial layer that resulted from these activities indicates complex secondary burial rites effecting the transition from entirely living to entirely dead individuals.
2015
neolithic; mortuary rites; defleshing; cut-marks; collective burial; secondary burial; Cave burial
01 Pubblicazione su rivista::01a Articolo in rivista
Cleaning the dead. Neolithic ritual processing of human bone at Scaloria Cave, Italy / J., Robb; E. S., Elster; E., Isetti; C. J., Knusel; Tafuri, MARY ANNE; A., Traverso. - In: ANTIQUITY. - ISSN 0003-598X. - STAMPA. - 89:343(2015), pp. 39-54. [10.15184/aqy.2014.35]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/762865
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