New multi-proxy isotopic data on the Copper age of eastern Liguria

Nuovi dati sull’età del Rame del Levante ligure tramite analisi isotopiche multi-proxy

Sara Bernardini (1, 2) , Gwenaëlle Goude (1) , Roberto Maggi (3) , Nadia Campana (4) , Renato Nisbet (5) , Alessandra Varalli (6) , Mary Anne Tafuri (2)

1 LAMPEA - Laboratoire méditerranéen de préhistoire Europe-Afrique
2 UNIROMA - Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" = Sapienza University [Rome]
3 Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri
4 Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la città metropolitana di Genova e le province di Imperia, La Spezia e Savona, Genoa, Italy
5 University of Ca’ Foscari [Venice, Italy]
6 Durham University

The Copper Age in Liguria show the affirmation of the transhumant pastoralism towards the summer pasture of the upland. The collective burials in caves suggest a social organisation with a kinship structure. The possibility to move and to assemble alimentary resources in specific locations, also in rough ones, sustain the emerge of early and consistent mining practices, both of copper mineral and lithic (red jasper) raw materials. The territory is widely occupied, while the controlled fire practice is the principal used by herders, farmers and miners. By carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes analysis on human bones collagen from the funerary cave Prima Ciappa in Val Frascarese (Genoa) (4300-3900 BP; n=6), and on contemporary archaeobotanical remains (4400-3300 BP; n=9) from one of the rare multi-stratified open site, Castellaro dell’Uscio (Genoa), we attempted to reconstruct some features of the environmental resources management. The homogeneity of the diet choices, resulting from the isotopic values, seems to reveal a close link with the territory, basically unchanged in time considering the long occupation of the two contexts. This could lead to theorise the adaptation and the implementation of the socio-economic choices to particular climatic and environmental situations. Of particular interest the isotopic data from the botanical remains, that would reflect specific climatic condition and soil management (humid environment, no manuring practices, probability of mixed crop). These data are more significant if compared to the paleodiet reconstructions of the Neolithic and Bronze Age contexts obtained in the lasts years. This group of information allow a diachronic reconstruction, on a wide temporal span, of the resources management and their consume in an heterogeneous regions as Liguria is, suggesting further systematic studies in this perspective.

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire; Anthropologie biologique

Sara Bernardini, Gwenaëlle Goude, Roberto Maggi, Nadia Campana, Renato Nisbet, et al.. Nuovi dati sull’età del Rame del Levante ligure tramite analisi isotopiche multi-proxy. LIII Riunione Scientifica dell'Istituto Italiano di Preistoria e Protostoria "Preistoria e Protostoria della Liguria", Oct 2018, Genoa, Italy. ⟨hal-02003424⟩