Alessandra Varalli

French National Centre for Scientific Research | CNRS · Aix-Marseille Université

C 4 crops such as sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor ) and finger millet ( Eleusine coracana ) have played a significant role in the economic livelihood in arid and semi-arid zones of tropical and sub-tropical Africa since prehistoric times. However, to date, our knowledge of their past management practices is limited. Stable isotope analysis of archaeobota...

The origin of Neolithic in Liguria: a craniometric perspective. The biological origin of the earliest Italian Neolithic populations – as well as their relations both with the local Mesolithic populations and with the other European Neolithic populations – constitute important fields of research. The aim of the present study is to investigate these...

We report the discovery and analysis of new Mesolithic human remains—dated to ca. 10,200–9000 cal. BP—from Arma di Nasino in Liguria, northwestern Italy, an area rich in Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic attestations, but for which little information on Early Holocene occupation was available. The multi-proxy isotopic profile of the two individuals r...

The Upper Seine Valley sees during the Bronze Age an increase in settlements and cemeteries characterized by a variety of architectures and funerary practices. This variability originates from the coalescence of two cultural traditions, the Atlantic culture from the northwest and the Continental culture from the east, which find its roots in the Up...

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, publ...

Agriculture has unquestionably been one of the human activities that has heavily shaped environments and landscapes worldwide from the last 10k years up to present day. More and more interdisciplinary research indicates how the understanding of socio-ecological dynamics of past farming systems over time is fundamental to predict environmental and s...

This study investigates changes in dietary practices and subsistence strategies in Bronze Age Italy integrating isotopic analyses with archaeobotanical and archaeozoological data. By investigating food habits, we contribute to reconstructing human lifestyles and highlighting possible links with the economic/social organization when the rise of stra...

Studi di Preistoria e Protostoria

The Arene Candide Cave is a renowned site on the northwestern Italian coast that has yielded numerous burials dating back to the terminal phases of the Pleistocene (Epigravettian culture). Thanks to the exceptional preservation of the remains, and to the information collected during the excavations that begun in the 1940s, researchers were able to...

The archaeological Bronze Age record in Europe reveals unprecedented changes in subsistence strategies due to innovative farming techniques and new crop cultivation. Increasing cultural exchanges affected the economic system. The inhabitants of Switzerland played a pivotal role in this European context through relationships with the Mediterranean,...

Using cross-sectional geometry (CSG), entheseal changes (ECs), and presence of external auditory meatus exostosis (EAE), this study tests the hypothesis—based on isotopic and zooarchaeological evidence—that in the Sicilian Mesolithic terrestrial rather than marine resources were predominantly exploited, in substantial continuity with previous Epigr...

This study offers a combined analysis of longbone mechanical properties (cross-sectional geometry, CSG), upper-limb enthesopathies (entheseal changes, ECs), and external auditory exostoses (EAEs) among Neolithic people from Liguria (Italy). Previous CSG studies have suggested a high degree of mobility in mountainous terrain and sexual dimorphism in...

Objective To reconstruct breastfeeding and weaning practices, metabolic stress including tuberculosis-induced wasting, and residential mobility of children in Neolithic and Metal Ages to infer their local ecologies. Materials Seven permanent teeth from individuals dated to the Neolithic, Copper, Bronze, and Iron Ages buried in nearby caves in wes...

Objective: This study evaluates patterns of human growth in the Neolithic to make inferences about environmental correlates of developmental disturbances. Materials: 33 children/adolescents from the Neolithic of Liguria (Italy), 29 of which date between 4,800-4,400 cal BCE. Methods: Neolithic patterns of growth are compared with a modern sampl...

Objective: To assess developmental disturbances through the analysis of linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) frequency and to infer environmental stress and life history within Neolithic communities from Liguria (Italy). Materials: 43 unworn/minimally worn permanent anterior teeth of 13 individuals recovered from nearby caves and dated to c. 4800-4400...

The multidisciplinary research team of this new project aimed at the chronological, anthropological and funerary behavior characterization of the skeletal remains unearthed from various caves in western Liguria (northwestern Italy) between the mid-1800s and the 1990s. Most of the burials and scattered bone assemblages were excavated prior to the de...

Beginning in the mid-1800s, about 200 burials and an undefined number of scattered human remains have been reported from several caves and rock shelters in western Liguria. The skeletal series, excavated following the methodology of the time, were considered likely/probably/possibly “Neolithic” or “Middle Neolithic”, and as such were studied by ant...

In recent years, the ever more frequent studies on the Bronze Age in northern Italy have shown the importance of this area for cultural and economic exchanges between central and southern Europe. The aim of the present multidisciplinary study was to define the health, behaviour and dietary habits in an Early-Middle Bronze Age skeletal sample from t...

Evidence of Neolithic occupation at Arma dell'Aquila (Finale Ligure, Italy) had been unearthed in the 1930s, with the discovery of nine burials and a number of scattered human remains. The material, however, had never been systematically studied and characterized chronologically until recently. We performed a complete re-assessment of funerary beha...

La transition vers le mode de vie néolithique (économie basée sur la domestication des plantes et animaux) a impacté en manière significative l’état sanitaire, l'alimentation, et l'activité humaine. Les nouvelles stratégies de subsistance ont permis l’introduction d’aliments de sevrage qui ont réduit la durée de l'allaitement et limité les interval...

The Copper Age in Liguria show the affirmation of the transhumant pastoralism towards the summer pasture of the upland. The collective burials in caves suggest a social organisation with a kinship structure. The possibility to move and to assemble alimentary resources in specific locations, also in rough ones, sustain the emerge of early and consis...

This research aims at delineating the dietary practices in Central Italy during the Bronze Age. The study of food choices is a mean for investigating palaeoenvironmental agricultural and economic activities and social relationships, which have been little explored until now in Italy from this specific perspective. A previous study conducted by Tafu...

The aim of this study is to define the subsistence strategies and dietary habits of the Early-Middle Bronze Age population of Ballabio (3230 ± 90 BP). This archaeological site, excavated in a rock shelter at 700 m a.s.l., was discovered in 2004 during a geological survey. Skeletal remains were found in two adjacent funerary structures, interpreted...