Steuri, Noah David; Milella, Marco; Szidat, Sönke; Lösch, Sandra; Hafner, Albert (September 2021). Neolithic stone cist graves of the Aosta valley (Northern Italy). Clarifying the 5th millennium BC chronology of large western alpine cemeteries (Unpublished). In: 27th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA Kiel 2021).
Research on the Neolithic cist graves of the Chamblandes type mostly focused on sites around Lake Geneva and the upper Rhone valley in Switzerland. For the cemeteries of the adjacent Aosta Valley (Italy), only few information is available and mainly a lack of radiocarbon dating is responsible for that research gap. However, this situation is deceptive about the scientific potential of this region: Within the framework of a Swiss National Science Foundation supported research project, we identified about 120 stone cist graves from ten different sites in the Aosta Valley. However, due to the lack of distinctive grave goods and missing absolute dating, their chronological position was unclear until now. Here we present the first extensive series of radiocarbon dates from Neolithic stone cist graves of the Aosta valley. A total of 26 human bone samples from 19 graves were analyzed at the LARA radiocarbon laboratory of the University of Bern. 14C data point to unexpected early dates for the two largest cemeteries of Villeneuve (4800-4550 BC) and Vollein (4500-4350 BC). This result identifies the cist graves from the Aosta valley to the oldest known Chamblandes type graves ever discovered. Altogether, our study provides new evidence about the evolution of this burial practice and intra-Alpine relations.
Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item (Poster) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of History and Archaeology > Institute of Archaeological Sciences > Pre- and Early History 04 Faculty of Medicine > Service Sector > Institute of Legal Medicine 08 Faculty of Science > Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences (DCBP) 04 Faculty of Medicine > Service Sector > Institute of Legal Medicine > Anthropology |
UniBE Contributor: |
Steuri, Noah David, Milella, Marco, Szidat, Sönke, Lösch, Sandra, Hafner, Albert |
Subjects: |
900 History > 930 History of ancient world (to ca. 499) 500 Science > 540 Chemistry 500 Science > 560 Fossils & prehistoric life 500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Sandra Lösch |
Date Deposited: |
18 Jan 2022 17:59 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 16:01 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/163713 |
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