Laura Sanna 1 & Irene Sanna 2
1 Institute for Biometeorology, National Research Council of Italy, Sassari – sanna@ibimet.cnr.it
2 Freelance Archaeologist, Sassari
Cave archaeology: some examples from Sardinia (Italy)
Cave archaeology is a scientific discipline that lies on the border between speleology and archaeology. It interprets the archaeological evidence found inside the caves. The common interest of the two scientific sectors are the analysis of the deposition processes in the cave, the features of these sediments, the reading of the stratigraphic sequences, the geochronology and the palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions.
The speleology offers to the archaeologist important tools to reconstruct the context in which the human presence occurred. Thanks to its skills in karst sciences, speleology allows the reconstruction of the environment in which a given archaic community was settled, its interactions with the past environment, the motivations that led to choosing a particular site and eventually to abandon it. Moreover, highlights the erosion that time has exercised on reminds, cave science also permits to evaluate the quality of information that has reached to our days.
At the same time, archaeological evidences provide invaluable records for the study of geomorphological, sedimentological and soil processes in karst environments. In fact, as datable elements, archaeological reminds can be useful chronological indicators for palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic reconstructions.
The aim of this study is to focus on how the connections between archaeology and speleology consent to better understand the relationship between man and environments in the past, illustrating the results of some multidisciplinary excavations carried out in caves around the town of Sassari (Sardinia, Italy) which provided new information on prehistoric cultures dating back as far as about 6,000 years ago, the oldest in the area.
This research has highlighted that the interaction between these two specialists overcomes some cognitive obstacles, such as the difficulties of operating in the underground environment and interpreting the palaeoenvironmental context for archaeologists, and the importance to preserve during explorations cultural records found within caves for the speleologists.
Relazione presentata alla conferenza “Archeologia e Speleologia, Subterranean Speleology” svoltasi a Roma il 2 Luglio 2019.
http://www.scintilena.com/conferenza-a-roma-su-archeologia-e-speleologia-subterranean-archaeology/07/03/