People
Human Skeletons and Society in Prehistoric Italy
John RobbDepartment of Archaeology, Cambridge University, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ UK jer39@cam.ac.uk
This research, ongoing since 1990, focuses upon skeletal signs of health, violence and activity in prehistoric italian_skeletons. To date, about 400 skeletons from about 40 sites have been studied. The earliest site, Ripa Tetta, is a Neolithic village dating to the sixth millennium BC. The latest site, Pontecagnano, is an Iron Age cemetery dating to the 7th-3rd centuries BC. The three principal directions of my research have been (a) integrating Neolithic skeletal data with burial taphonomy to understand Neolithic ways of death; (b) understanding long term social and economic change; and (c) investigating links between biology and social relations in the Iron Age cemetery of Pontecagnano.
Prehistoric Italian skeletons reflect a number of cultural practices. Many were trepanned; about three fourths of trepanations are found in males (see Germana' & Fornaciari 1992).. Some, however, are known in females (see Robb & Mallegni, Rivista di Antropologia 72, 1994).
Dental remains reveal a practice of intentional tooth removal in Neolithic women, possibly for ritual, cosmetic or ethno-medical reasons (see Robb, Antiquity 71:659-669, 1997).
Skeletal remains portray long-term changes in violence. Skeletal trauma appears highest in the Neolithic, uncommon in the Copper Age, and moderate to high in the Bronze and Iron Ages -- a pattern which contradicts the image of the peaceful Neolithic and the warlike Copper Age derived from art and artifacts, and which complex changes in the social use of violence. Interestingly, from the Bronze Age onwards, trauma is highly gendered, with much greater prevalences in males; this does not seem to be the case in earlier periods (see J. Robb, "Violence and Gender in Early Italy", in Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past, edited by D.W. Frayer and D. Martin, 1998).
Many paleopathologies of varied types are evident in the italian_skeletons; for instance, three cases of an unusual congenital malformation, humerus varus, are known -- two from Bronze Age people from Toscana and one from an Iron Age site known to be settled by Etruscans. Periostitis is common, and cases of spina bifida, hyperostosis frontalis interna, osteitis of the pubic symphysis, and non-specific infections are also known.
Systematic analysis of dental remains focuses on caries, ante-mortem tooth loss, abcesses, calculus, and enamel hypoplasias.
The real significance of dental analysis lies in what it can
reveal about ancient economies. Long term trends in dental disease through
Italian prehistory show that dental disease was common in
all periods, though it was less prevalent in the Copper Age, a
fact possibly related to economic shifts to pastoralism in this
period.
Another major economic change reflected in
skeletons is urbanism. Urban Iron Age populations show sharp
increases in infectious disease and
childhood stress, as known from periostitis and from
enamel hypoplasias. This probably mirrors the health hazards of
living in crowded, early towns, with poor sanitation, unclean
water sources and large groups of people for pathogens to live
in.
A second major consequence of the urban lifestyle is
reduced mobility; both femur cross-sections and tibia cross-section
become noticeably rounder in the Iron Age, reflecting less
walking-related bending stresses upon them.
Long-term changes in stature probably
reflect both increasing nutritional variety and adequacy, and the
effects of urbanization.
Signs of craft specialization and occupational stress are most evident in the Iron Age (see J. Robb, Human Evolution 9:215-229, 1994).
One current focus of research is the connection between social status and ritual, as shown in burial goods, and biological status as evident in skeletal signs of health, stress and trauma (see Robb et. al, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 115, 2001). Current statistical analyses on Iron Age samples shows that the relationship is quite complex. There is no clear linkage betwen grave goods and signs of childhood stress (enamel hypoplasia, stature, cribra orbitalia). At the same time, a discrete group of adult males can be identified who were buried with no goods in the simplest type of tombs, and whose skeletons reveal very high rates of trauma, tibial periostitis and Schmorl's nodes. An underclass or distinct status group? Perhaps.