Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41589217›Full record

ArticleArchaeological and anthropological sciences2026

Evaluating the potential of in-depth chrono-cultural and functional analysis of pottery in European cave archaeology: a case study from the prehistoric Grotte Di Sant'angelo Cave Complex (Cassano allo Ionio - Calabria, Italy).

Delia Carloni, Felice Larocca, Peter A J Attema, Giuseppe De Luca, Francesco Breglia, Marco Pacciarelli, Giuseppe E De Benedetto

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Article in Archaeological and anthropological sciences, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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7 authors.

Delia CarloniGroningen Institute of Archaeology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.ORCID 0000-0003-1006-8650
Felice LaroccaUniversità degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Gruppo di ricerca speleo-archeologica, Bari, Italy.
Peter A J AttemaGroningen Institute of Archaeology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.ORCID 0000-0003-1360-5757
Giuseppe De LucaLaboratorio di spettrometria di massa analitica ed isotopica, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy.
Francesco BregliaCentro di Ricerca speleo-archeologica 'Enzo dei Medici', Roseto Capo Spulico, Italy.ORCID 0000-0001-6975-0561
Marco PacciarelliDipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy.ORCID 0000-0002-8510-3652
Giuseppe E De BenedettoLaboratorio di spettrometria di massa analitica ed isotopica, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy.ORCID 0000-0002-0832-5470

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6 · The paper itself

Abstract

This paper evaluates the potential of in-depth chronological and functional analysis of prehistoric pottery (4th millennium BCE) from the Grotte di Sant'Angelo Cave Complex, located in the municipality of Cassano allo Ionio (Calabria, Southern Italy). The underground system, formed by sulfuric acid speleogenesis, features a floor scattered with depressions, holes, and fractures of different depths hosting archaeological materials. A number of these contexts in the so-called 'Trivio' area, excavated in 2017 and reported on here, provide an excellent opportunity to pioneer a combined archaeological and scientific contextual approach to unravelling the use of pottery in the Grotte di Sant'Angelo Cave Complex through time. The approach chosen first establishes the chronology of pots through typological comparisons with sites offering key stratigraphic sequences for prehistoric material culture present in the Italian peninsula and islands. Next, a functional study is presented that focusses on the use-related morphological properties of the pots, their performance characteristics, and preserved organic residues. Based on presentation and evaluation of the resulting data, the authors then proceed to propose hypotheses on the use and meaning of the various pottery shapes present in individual contexts from the Trivio zone cave floor contexts. At a more general level, the aim of the authors is to show how a contextual approach, combining several research tools for pottery analysis can make an important contribution to the toolbox of scholars working in European cave archaeology, thereby increasing the discipline's potential of resolving theoretically informed questions about human-cave entanglements in later prehistory. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12520-025-02332-1.

Indexed as

Cave archaeologyContextual approachCopper AgePottery analysisPrehistoryResidue analysis

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PMID41589217
PMCPMC12831680

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