[footsteps on loose rocks]
You enter the cave. It's barely big enough to stand up in.
The floor is absolutely strewn with the bodies of people you probably knew. Maybe
they were family, maybe you had peeled the flesh from their bones yourself. You
go further and further in and the cave gets smaller and smaller until you're
crawling on your belly across the rocks. The daylight now vanished, the cave is only
illuminated by your small stone lamp. In the distance you hear fire and the sound
of water. You enter a second chamber. A fire fills the cave with smoke. You can
see just enough to make out a lake but beyond that total darkness. You're handed
a drink by some kind of shaman perhaps. It's ice-cold. You're not sure
but it looks like, in the darkness, a lone skull is watching you from the wall.
[Cool Italian Music]
The neolithic lifestyle had been making its way across the Aegean since 7000 BCE
reaching the Adriatic about 700 years later by around 6300 BCE. Excavations at
Sidari in Corfu have revealed early examples of Impresso Ware, the pottery
incised with mollusk shells that would become characteristic of the central
Mediterranean in the Neolithic period. As these farmers had been island hopping
their way around the Aegean, the 72 kilometer strait of Otranto was not a
huge obstacle for them apparently. Neolithic farming lifestyles were
widespread across southern Italy and Sicily by 6000 BCE. Initially communities
were defined by small isolated farms as pioneers spread across the
land but these soon developed into larger villages such as Passo di Corvo.
As with everywhere else in the Neolithic, they followed the oats and goats diet. I've
covered that in plenty of videos before so I shall say no more. The religious
practices of Neolithic Italy are unique for that time though. Throughout Italy's
rugged terrain there are many thousands of caves and in
these caves we can see that vast arrays of different rituals were performed.
Sacrificial offerings, burials, fertility rites, strange paintings of possible
shamans, and some caves were just home, they were just lived in. Through the
surviving archaeological evidence we can really see a huge amount of complexity
and diversity in the behavior and ritual of these Neolithic folks. I don't think
it's possible to do the whole of Italy justice in one video so I'm not going to
even try. Instead today I want to focus on just one brilliant example from
Apulia, Grotta Scaloria. Just to give us a little taste of what these ancient
people were up to.
[More cool Italian music]
Behind this unassuming door under a small field in southern Italy sits
Grotta Scaloria. Scaloria cave consists of two chambers connected by a
narrow and long gallery. The first chamber, Scaloria alta, is a large
opening 80 meters by 100 meters and is about 2 meters high at the tallest point.
So, just big enough to stand up in. This chamber contained the burials of
possibly 137 individuals organized seemingly into groups of 20, and other
than a few examples they were entirely disarticulated. Mainly young people aged
below 15 to 20 but some older people - the oldest being probably around 50.
Women also outnumbered men 2 to 1. Clearly, many died young in the neolithic.
This is not unusual for pre-industrial societies, high birthrate high mortality.
Strontium analysis of the bones suggests that they came from the surrounding 15
to 20 kilometers so these were people from local Neolithic villages buried
here. They weren't deposited in one go, the
burials spanned the course of several centuries so this wasn't a massacre or
anything like that. However, it's really important to note that I am using the
term burial very very lightly here. The remains are pretty much smashed to bits
and seem to have been casually discarded on the cave floor. No graves dug or
anything like that. At least 24 of them, possibly more, were also defleshed.
The bones are covered in cut marks. One skull was seemingly cut down the middle
and the skin peeled off either side. Pretty gruesome! Why go to the effort of
cleaning the bones only to smash them up, casually discard them on the floor with
pots and animal bones, seemingly of no further ritual use? What is the social
purpose behind this act? They must have done it for a reason, these were people
from their own community. Well, John Robb et al. have ideas about
that.
Secondary burial rites often involve prolonged interaction with the dead
during a period in which they are liminal beings spirits remaining nearby
or memories being actively mourned. Here, the transformation from entirely living
to entirely dead beings had to be accomplished by degrees, and cleaning and
discarding the bone was the last detectable stage. Final deposition could
perhaps have signaled a termination of this period of liminality, the moment at
which the deceased reached stability, and no longer hovering and threatening. At
which the living could re-emerge from mourning.
[Third blast of cool Italian music]
The second chamber, Scaloria Bassa, is reached via a very long
steep and narrow gallery only big enough to crawl through. This really does take
some effort to reach. The chamber is slightly smaller than Scaloria Alta.
It's not quite big enough to stand up in and it ends in a small lake. It's here,
in this chamber, that we have outstanding evidence for religious activity and it
really marks Grotta Scaloria as an absolutely incredible archaeological
site. In front of the lake, a rectangular Basin was carved into the bedrock,
presumably to collect water dripping from above. Around the basin the
stalagmites had their tops removed to create a flat surface and fine
Neolithic pottery was placed on top of these platforms. 70 pots were recovered
all in all, some of them still sitting in place on the stalagmites, intact as they
had been 7,000 years ago. This is incredibly rare, I mean this is an
exceptional site. Again, presumably these pots were to collect
water dripping from the ceiling. In front of the carved basin was evidence for a
large fire that contained the remains of animal bones. Finally, there was one human
burial here, some other scattered human bones, and fascinatingly, a lone skull had
been placed in a natural fissure in the rock overlooking this whole scene.
I mean, what can we make of this site, it's spectacular! The archaeologists that
first entered the cave in the 1930s, the first people probably to enter in
7,000 years, must have been astounded. I'd have felt like Howard Carter peeking
into Tutankhamun's tomb. We can only imagine the rituals that took place here.
what did they do in the basin why collect water from the ceiling
What role did water play in their religion? What role did that small lake
play? Was this some sort of transitional place where the world of the dead met
the world of the living? Who did the skull in the wall belong to?
The mind truly boggles at the possibilities.
[Feet crunching on ice]
Okaaaay. WHOOAH!! I fell in the ice, ship! I was supposed to be in a cave right now and,
as you can probably tell by the fact that I just sank two foot into the ice, I
can't make it I can't get in there it's uhhh it's frozen over. It's somewhere around
here but it's totally frozen over and I'm not an absolute psychopath and
willing to go into a frozen over cave for the sake of a video. But in a way it
illustrates my point that I was hoping to make even better. I just wish I hadn't
woken up at 5:00 a.m. to drive three hours to stand in the ice. But I was a
little bit apprehensive. I'm not gonna lie to you, I was apprehensive about
going into a cave on my own, which brings me to the point that I'm trying to make.
I don't believe it difficult to imagine why these Neolithic people chose to
worship in caves or had, you know, complicated spiritual beliefs around
caves. They're very dark, they're very cold, they echo. Whenever you're in one, if
you've been in one, it still kind of makes the hairs on the back of my neck
stand up, and I don't believe in spirits or gods or anything like that and yet
I'm still apprehensive about it. There's something uncomfortable about it, other
worldly about it, you might say. So, if I feel like that,
in the modern world, believing what I believe, knowing what I know, imagine if
you were one of these Neolithic people who presumably sincerely believed in
their religion and in their worldview. How sort of, I don't know what the word
would be. How, sort of powerful that experience would be, of going
through these caves. Especially in Grotta Scaloria, if you think about
it, that crawl through the darkness through that extremely low narrow tunnel
for many many meters, illuminated only by a small lamp or a torch. I can't help but
think it would be a really powerful and profound and scary religious experience
for them. It is so interesting to me, really the past really is another world,
especially seven, eight thousand years ago.
Places like Grotta Scaloria, and just trying to imagine what they were doing
and what they'd have thought and the rituals they'd have taken part, in stuff
like that really drives my passion for prehistory. I absolutely love it! Big
thanks to Carlton Grover from A Life In Ruins Podcast for doing that little
voiceover of the article for me. They interviewed me on their podcast and it's
going to be coming out around the same time as this video. I'm not sure when I'm
gonna finish editing this video so just follow them listen to their podcast it's
great, you'll love it. It's all archaeology anthropology themed of
course, like my channel and so thanks to him for helping me with this video.
Thanks to my patrons for supporting me, as always! Especially these top-tier
patrons whose generosity knows no bounds! I'm absolutely freezing I think I'm
gonna get off this ice before I sink in it again and just go home. I brought, I
brought pasta and everything. I was gonna eat it in the cave I had the whole
day planned out but probably should have checked the weather before I left, oh
well! Skiddly doo you guys, skiddly doo. I even wore shorts! Skiddly doo! [In Italian] chá so
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