Pubblicazioni
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Il nostro team sta lavorando a varie ricerche, ecco alcuni articoli scientifici che potrebbero interessarti. Rimani aggiornato!
The Use-Life of Ancestors: Neolithic Cranial Retention, Caching and Disposal at Masseria Candelaro, Apulia, Italy
When archaeologists discuss ‘ancestor cults’ or ‘ancestor veneration’, what this might entail in practice usually remains vague, leading to charges that the concept of ‘ancestors’ is often applied generically. In this article, the authors combine bioarchaeological, taphonomic, radiocarbon, and isotopic studies to explore the ritual practice of the selective retention, curation, and deposition of a group of human crania and mandibles...
Prehistoric Italian foodways: Meta-analysis of stable isotope data from the Neolithic to the Iron Age
Italian Later Prehistory was characterised by profound changes that impacted everyday life in many aspects. Whether or not and how such changes were reflected in the subsistence practices of ancient populations is an ongoing question in the archaeological debate. This question has been investigated using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis for several decades. Here, we present a...
Exploring Burial and Dietary Patterns at the Copper Age Necropolis of Selvicciola (Viterbo, Italy): New Perspectives from 14C and Stable Isotope Data
The Selvicciola necropolis is a large burial site dated to the Copper Age, located on the mid-Tyrrhenian side of Central Italy, in the Fiora river valley. Despite post-depositional disturbances, 32 prehistoric tombs were found, generally in a good state of preservation, with a total number of 119 individuals identified. In the present study, radiocarbon and stable isotope measurements on bone collagen are combined with skeletal data for 71 of these individuals. We aim to investigate...
Histotaphonomic analysis of bone bioerosion reveals a regional framework of diverse deathways in the Neolithic of Southeast Italy
The wide diversity of Neolithic funerary practices is increasingly recognised. In Southeast Italy, recent studies have drawn attention to the co-existence of multiple ways of treating the dead within single sites and across the region. In this study, we address how such diverse deathways form a regional framework of ritual practice through histotaphonomic analysis of bone bioerosion. Samples were obtained from...
Introducing Isotòpia: A stable isotope database for
Classical Antiquity
We present Isotòpia, an open-access database compiling over 36,000 stable isotope measurements (δ13C, δ15N, δ18O, δ34S, 87Sr/86Sr, 206Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/204Pb, 208Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/206Pb, and 208Pb/206Pb) on human, animal, and plant bioarchaeological remains dating to Classical Antiquity (approximately 800 BCE ‐ 500 CE). These were recovered from different European regions, particularly from...
IsoMedIta: A Stable Isotope Database for Medieval Italy
The IsoMedIta database compiles 6304 stable isotope measurements (δ13C, δ15N, δ18O, δ34S, 87Sr/86Sr) from archaeological sites in medieval Italy (c. 500–1500 ce). The data is spatiotemporally referenced and includes bioarchaeological and paleo-environmental descriptions, alongside with other archaeological, biological, historical, environmental and technical metadata. IsoMedIta can be employed to...
The Mediterranean archive of isotopic data, a dataset to explore lifeways from the Neolithic to the Iron Age
We present the open-access Mediterranean Archive of Isotopic dAta (MAIA) dataset, which includes over 48,000 isotopic measurements from prehistoric human, animal and plant samples from archaeological sites in the Mediterranean basin dating from the Neolithic to the Iron Age (ca. 6000 – 600 BCE). MAIA collates...
Stable isotope reconstruction of the "Mediterranean" diet throughout the millennia
Human and animal bones, as well as botanical remains recovered from archaeological sites, preserve the carbon, nitrogen and sulphur (δ13C, δ15N, δ34S) signatures of their last years of life. These isotope ratios are connected to the protein portion of the diet and can be used to investigate the dietary strategies of past populations. Several studies have already been undertaken on this topic across the Mediterranean basin. This paper aims at...
Regional long-term analysis of dietary isotopes in Neolithic southeastern Italy: new patterns and research directions.
Isotopic analyses of prehistoric diet have only recently reached the threshold of going beyond site-focused reports to provide regional syntheses showing larger trends. In this work we present the first regional analysis for Neolithic southeastern Italy as a whole, including both substantial original data and a review of the available published data. The results show that...
A Bayesian multi-proxy contribution to the socioeconomic, political, and cultural history of Late Medieval Capitanata (southern Italy).
Medieval southern Italy is typically viewed as a region where political, religious, and cultural systems coexisted and clashed. Written sources often focus on elites and give an image of a hierarchical feudal society supported by a farming economy. We undertook an interdisciplinary study combining historical and archaeological evidence with...
Multi-isotope analysis of primary and secondary dentin as a mean to broaden intra-life dietary reconstruction.
A case from Longobard Italy.
This exploratory study proposes an original intra-life history investigation through sequential analysis of the isotopic composition of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur (CNS) on both primary and secondary dentin of a tooth (M1). We focus on an elderly woman from Longobard Italy (6th to 8th c. CE), who showed a...