The University of Bari (UNIBA) conducts
since the year 2000 research and archaeological excavation
campaigns on the site of Grotta della Monaca, in the municipal
district of Sant’Agata di Esaro (Cosenza). These campaigns
are carried out on concession of the Ministero per i Beni
e le Attività Culturali and with the approval of the Soprintendenza
per i Beni Archeologici della Calabria. It is a multidisciplinary
research in which researcher and experts of different subjects
work. Therefore archaeologists, mineralogists, geologists,
anthropologists, lithologists and zoologists work in the cave,
constantly helped by expert speleologists.
The territory in which the cavity is located.
The archaeological importance of the cave is closely connected
with the double function that the cavity had in pre-protohistoric
age. It is both the place of a wide burial ground and the
area of an intense mining activity for the exploitation of
iron and copper ore. The heart of the burial ground is located
in the deepest part of the cavity, in the zone of connection
between the “Sala dei pipistrelli” and the “Cunicoli terminali”.
These burials are distributed along the walls, single or in
a group, with a marked predilection for deep niches or slight
recesses in the rock. The burial evidences are limited to
the abundant dispersion of bony remains on the ground, much
fragmented and widely scattered among the collapsed rocks.
It has not yet been possible to find a burial with an intact
skeleton but the anthropological research has recognised,
on the basis of a first group of finds, the remains of 12
individuals. This is a number destined to rise because recent
research has located further burial places.
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Cranium of an adult subject of male sex in frontal and side view (it dates to the Middle Bronze Age). |
The subsequent human frequentations, and above all those connected
to mining exploitation, are the cause of the extreme fragmentation
of the skeletal remains, even though it can also be attributed
to natural causes like normal decay in places with high humidity
or the upsetting by wild animals. Some areas of the Pregrotta
are most probably connected with the hypogean burial ground.
They were zones of deposition of probable offers for the dead
and maybe of ritual practices. This is proved by numerous
vessels accumulated in small fissures, probably containing
a perishable content, and by abundant burnt remains of a fully-grown
Sus scrofa specimen.
In the area of the hypogean burial ground there are the clearest
indications of mining exploitation. They are represented by
lithic tools that were used for excavation, the marks of these
tools left on the walls of the cave and the dry walls. The
lithic tools used for excavation are characterised by a transversal
groove that runs around the body of the tool, which is used
for hafting. Three typological subcategories are yet recognisable:
"hammer-axes", "mallets" and "picks".
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Hammer-axe with a groove around the body (mining tool). |
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One of the dry walls built in the deepest part of the cave. |
The petrographic investigations carried out on those tools
have indicated that the raw materials which compose them come
from a local source. The use of these lithic tools is related
to the abundant occurrence of veins of iron (goethite) and
copper (malachite and azurite) mineralizations in the whole
area of the Cunicoli terminali. Goethite appears as ferruginous
veins between the calcareous stratification in many different
colours, from dark brown to bright red and from orange to
yellow ochre. Malachite and azurite appear like bluish-green
smearings on the walls and particularly on little stones scattered
on the ground.
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Goethite of
red colour. |
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Malachite smearings
on fragments
of calcareous rock. |
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Earthy goethite of light ochre colour. |
The chronological horizon of the mining activity and of the
burial ground can be dated between the Early Chalcolithic
and the Middle Bronze Age (beginnings of the III - middle
of the II millennium BC). This is demonstrated by the pottery
that was recovered during the research. So far no evidence
more ancient than the Chalcolithic has been found in the area
of the Cunicoli terminali, but Neolithic ware with wide red
bands has been found near the entrance and the Pregrotta.
They date back the first period of human frequentation between
the second half of the V and the beginning of the IV millennium
BC. The mixing of finds that are pertinent to the two uses
of the cavity does not allow us, for the moment, to set a
clear chronology of the distinct funeral and mining phases.
However it is clear that they had to follow one another without
ever overlapping. The final upsetting of the burial ground
can be attributed to the latest and most recent mining phase
of the Bronze Age. |
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