Content uploaded by Roberto Maggi
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Roberto Maggi on Sep 18, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
15
Research
The Gravettian burial known as the
Prince (“Il Principe”): new evidence for
his age and diet
P. B. Pettitt, M. Richards, R. Maggi & V. Formicola*
The famous upper Palaeolithic (Gravettian) burial with shell ornaments known as “Il
Principe” was discovered in Italy sixty years ago. Here the authors present recent scientific
research on his skeleton, leading to new assessments of the date of the burial and indications
of diet.
Keywords: Gravettian, burial, Italy
Introduction
“Il Principe” (the Prince) is the nickname given to a spectacular Mid Upper Palaeolithic
(Gravettian) burial discovered at Arene Candide, Italy in 1942. Arene Candide is a large cave
located about 90 m above sea level on the slope of the Caprazoppa promontory, along the
Ligurian coast near Finale Ligure (Savona, Italy). The cave is named after a dune of white
siliceous sand of aeolian origin, banked against the wall of the promontory, today destroyed
by quarrying activity. Systematic excavation of its rich deposit was carried out at the beginning
of the 1940’s by Bernabò Brea and Cardini who exposed a stratigraphic sequence which
ranged from the Upper Palaeolithic to historical times and included many burials of Late
Epigravettian and Neolithic date (Bernabò Brea, 1946; Cardini 1980 1994; Maggi 1977).
The burial of “Il Principe” (Arene Candide 1) came to light on 1 May 1942, during the
excavation of a sondaggio (test core) into the Pleistocene deposits, shortly before the excavations
were interrupted by the war (Cardini 1942). The skeleton of an adolescent male (Sergi et al.
1972), spectacularly ornamented (hence “Il Principe”), was found at a depth 6.70 m in a bed
of red ochre, its head surrounded by hundreds of perforated shells and canines of deer,
probably originally forming a kind of cap. Shells (Ciprea sp.), pendants of mammoth ivory,
four perforated “bâtons de commandement” of elk antler, three of which were decorated
with thin radial striations around the hole (Molari 1994), and a 23 cm long flint blade held
in the right hand were additional components of the extraordinary ornamentation of this
specimen (Figure 1).
*Pettitt, Department of Archaeology, Keble College, Oxford OX1 3PG, UK. (paul.pettitt@keble.ox.ac.uk)
Richards, Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, UK (M.P.Richards@Bradford.ac.uk)
Maggi, Soprintendenza Archeologica della Liguria, via Balbi 10, 16126 Genova, Italy. (museoarchiavari@libero.it)
Formicola, Dpt. di Etologia Ecologia ed Evoluzione, via A. Volta 6, 56126 Pisa, Italy. (vformi@discau.unipi.it)
Received 13 December 2001; Revised 9 January 2003.
16
P. B. Pettitt, M. Richards, R. Maggi & V. Formicola
The recent work carried
out by the authors and
reported here employed
scientific analysis of Il
Principe’s skeleton, preserved
in the Museo di Archeologia
Ligure, to measure a direct
date by AMS and examine
the stable isotope assemblage
for information about diet.
AMS radiocarbon
dating
A sample of 380mg drilled
from a femur of the Arene
Candide 1 skeleton was pre-
treated using the standard
Oxford procedure for bone.
As the curatorial history of
the sample was unknown, it
was suspected that an
unidentified form of
preservative may have been
used and pre-treatment
methods were undertaken
assuming potential
contamination. Of particular relevance was the use of an ultrafilter (Brown et al. 1988),
which has been shown to successfully remove preservatives applied to bones. This allowed us
to be confident about the absence of contaminating carbon from the sample we measured.
After pre-treatment, a sample of 0.4 mg carbon was measured in the Oxford Accelerator
Mass Spectrometer, and the result was as follows:
OxA–10700 Arene Candide 1 “Il Principe”, bone, Homo sapiens,–δ13C=––17.6
δ15N = 12.4, C/N ratio = 3.2.
23440 ± 190 years BP
The result is uncalibrated and expressed in radiocarbon years BP (where Before Present =
AD1950), using the half life of 5568 years. Isotopic fractionation has been corrected for
using the measured δ13C values quoted (to ± 0.3 per mil relative to VPDB). At two standard
deviations, the result shows that the burial was emplaced between 23820 – 23060 BP, clearly
within the 24th millennium (uncal) BP.
Comparison with other 14C dates available for the archaeological layers at Arene Candide
shows that our direct date is statistically the same age at one standard deviation as that
Figure 1. Arene Candide 1 (“Il Principe”). Note perforated shell ‘cap’, perforated
batons, flint blade grasped in right hand, and mass of yellow ochre between the left
clavicle and mandible.
17
Research
The Gravettian burial known as the Prince (“Il Principe”): new evidence for his age and diet
obtained from charcoal recently recovered from “Hearth VI” of Cardini’s stratigraphy (Beta–
53983: 23450 ± 220, 23890 – 23010 at 2σ: Macphail et al. 1994). At first sight this is
potentially problematic as the two dates pertain to distinct stratigraphical units: Arene Candide
1 was found “just below or at the bottom of the fifth of a series of eight hearths” (Cardini
1994:38), so, based on the amount of deposit between hearth V and VI (see Bietti and
Molari 1994: Figure 7), one might expect some age difference between the two.
However, all but the fifth of the so-called “hearths” were nothing more than “shallow and
limited lenses of fine charcoal occurring where the deposit was stone free” (Cardini 1994:37).
The charcoal sample was taken in 1991 during work to preserve the exposed sections of the
1942 trench. It is difficult to correlate the archaeological sections exposed today with Cardini’s
original stratigraphy, particularly in relation to the correspondence between “hearths” (Bietti
and Molari, 1994; Macphail et al. 1994). Moreover, both dates clearly belong to the 24th
millennium (uncal) BP, and reading the two results at two standard deviations, up to 800
radiocarbon years may separate the two.
Dietary information
The carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values of the extracted and dated collagen provide us
with information on the diet of ‘Il Principe’. Stable isotope analyses provides information on
protein sources in diets over the last years of life, and is particularly well suited to distinguishing
between marine and terrestrial protein sources (Tauber 1981, Chisholm et al. 1982, Richards
and Mellars 1998, Richards and Hedges 1999). The δ13C value of –17.6 and the associated
δ15N value of 12.6% are indicative of a contribution of marine foods to the diet. If we use
Holocene end-point values of –20 ± 1% for a 100% terrestrial diet and –12 ± 1 for a 100%
marine diet, the ‘Il Principe’ values indicate that approximately 20 to 25% of dietary protein
is from marine protein, probably from the Mediterranean. This links in well with a larger
study of Gravettian humans from Eurasia which have also been dated directly using the
AMS Radiocarbon technique (Richards et al. 2001) in which evidence for the use of aquatic
resources was indicated for a number of individuals through stable isotope analyses.
Wider context
These results fit well with the emerging context of reliable dates for other Mid Upper
Palaeolithic ochred and accompanied European burials (summarized in Table 1). Mid Upper
Palaeolithic burials were clearly emplaced from the 27th to 24th (and possibly early 23rd)
millennia BP. The new AMS result suggests that Arene Candide 1 was one of the last known
elaborate mid Upper Palaeolithic burials. The new stable isotope data for Arene Candide 1
supports the notion of significant increase in dietary breadth from at least c. 27 000 BP.
18
P. B. Pettitt, M. Richards, R. Maggi & V. Formicola
Acknowledgements
We are most grateful to the curators of the Museo di Archeologia Ligure in Genoa Pegli for their kind assistance
during the sampling of Arene Candide 1, and to the staff of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit for
carrying out the Radiocarbon measurement. This work was supported by the National Environmental Research
Council Radiocarbon Facility (P.B.P.), MURST and IIPP (R.M.) and CNR (99.03689.PF.36) (V.F.).
Table 1.
Site Sample context Date Reference
Paviland 1 (the “Red skeleton OxA–1815, 26350 ± 550; Aldhouse-Green &
Lady”), Wales OxA–8025, 25840 ± 280 Pettitt 1998, Pettitt 2000
Lagar Velho 1, Portugal fauna and charcoal OxA–8421, 24660 ± 260; Duarte et al. 1999
from grave fill OxA–8423, 24520 ± 240;
OxA–8422, 23920 ± 220;
GrA–13310, 24860 ± 200
Brno 2 (Francousk· skeleton OxA–8293, 23680 ± 200 Pettitt & Trinkaus 2000
Street), Czech Republic
Dolní Vestonice site From the “triple burial” GrN–14831, 26640 ± 110 van der Plicht 1997
II DVXIII–XV,
Czech Republic
Sungir, Russia skeletons of adult male Respectively Pettitt and Bader 2000
(burial 1) and double OxA–9036 22,930 ± 200;
burial (2 & 3) OxA–9037 23830 ± 220;
OxA–9038 24100 ± 240
References
ALDHOUSE-GREEN, S. H. R. & P. B. PETTITT 1998.
Paviland Cave: contextualizing the Red Lady.
Antiquity 72(278). 756–772.
BERNABÒ BREA, L. 1946. Gli scavi nella Caverna delle
Arene Candide, (Bordighera: Istituto di Studi
Liguri).
BIETTI, A. & C. MOLARI. 1994. The Upper Pleistocene
deposit of the Arene Candide cave (Savona, Italy):
general introduction and stratigraphy. Quaternaria
Nova 4: 9–27.
BROWN, T. A., D. E. NELSON & J. R. SOUTHON. 1988.
Improved collagen extraction by modified Longin
method. Radiocarbon 30:171–177.
CARDINI, L. 1942. Nuovi documenti sull’antichità
dell’uomo in Italia: reperto umano del Paleolitico
superiore nella Grotta delle Arene Candide. Razza
e Civiltà 3:5–25.
CARDINI, L. 1980. La necropoli mesolitica delle Arene
Candide (Liguria). Memorie dell’Istituto Italiano di
Paleontologia Umana, n.s. 3:9–31.
CARDINI, L. (ed. Taschini, M) 1994. Le industrie dei
livelli mesolitici e paleolitici della caverna delle
Arene Candide (Savona). Quaternaria Nova 4:29–
78.
CHISHOLM, B.S., D. E. NELSON & H. P. SCHWARCZ.
1982. Stable carbon ratios as a measure of marine
versus terrestrial protein in ancient diets. Science
216:1131–1132.
DUARTE, C., J. MAURCIO, P. B. PETTITT, P. SOUTO, E.
TRINKAUS & J. ZILHAO. 1999. An earlier Upper
Palaeolithic human skeleton from the Abrigo do
Lagar Velho (Portugal) and modern human
emergence in Iberia. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (USA), 96. 7604–9.
MACPHAIL, R.I., J. HATHER, S. HILLSON & R. MAGGI.
1994. The Upper Pleistocene deposits at Arene
Candide: soil micromorphology of some samples
from the Cardini 1940–42 excavations.
Quaternaria Nova 4:79–100.
MAGGI, R. 1997. The excavations by Luigi Bernabò
Brea and Luigi Cardini of the cave of Arene
Candide within the historical context of the study
of Prehistory in Italy. In R. Maggi (ed.) Arene
Candide: a functional and environmental
assessment of the Holocene sequence (excavations
Bernabò Brea-Cardini 1940–1950). Memorie
dell’Istituto di Paleontologia Umana,n.s. 5, 11–30.
MOLARI, C. 1994. The industry on bone of the
Pleistocene layers from the Arene Candide Cave
(Savona, Italy). Quaternaria Nova IV, 297–340.
19
Research
The Gravettian burial known as the Prince (“Il Principe”): new evidence for his age and diet
PETTITT, P. B. 2000. Radiocarbon chronology, faunal
turnover and human occupation at the Goat’s
Hole, Paviland. In Aldhouse-Green, S. (ed)
Paviland Cave and the ‘Red Lady’: a Definitive
Report. (University of Wales College, Newport and
National Museums and Galleries of Wales. Bristol:
Western Academic and Specialist Press): 63–71.
PETTITT, P. B. & O. N. BADER. 2000. Direct AMS
Radiocarbon dates on the Sungir mid Upper
Palaeolithic burials. Antiquity 74: 269–70.
PETTITT, P. B. & E. TRINKAUS. 2000. Direct radiocarbon
dating of the Brno 2 Gravettian human remains.
Anthropologie (Brno). 38.2:149–50.
RICHARDS, M.P., & R.E.M. HEDGES. 1999. Stable
isotope evidence for similarities in the types of
marine foods used by Late Mesolithic humans at
sites along the Atlantic coast of Europe. Journal of
Archaeological Science 26:717–722.
RICHARDS, M.P. & P. MELLARS. 1998. Stable isotopes
and the seasonality of the Oronsay middens.
Antiquity 72:178–184.
RICHARDS, M. P., P.B. PETTITT, M. STINER & E.
TRINKAUS. 2001. Stable isotope evidence for
increasing dietary breadth in the European mid-
Upper Palaeolithic. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Science (USA) 98(11): 6528–6532.
SERGI, S., R. PARENTI & G. PAOLI. 1974. Il giovane
paleolitico della Caverna delle Arene Candide.
Memorie dell’Istituto Italiano di Paleontologia
Umana, n.s. 2:13–38.
TAUBER, H. 1981. 13C evidence for dietary habits of
prehistoric man in Denmark. Nature 292:332–333
VAN DER PLICHT, J. 1997. The Radiocarbon dating. In:
Pavlov I – Northwest, the Upper Paleolithic burial
and its settlement context. The Dolni Vestonice
Studies, Vol. 4 (Academy of Sciences of the Czech
Republic, Brno). ISBN 80–86023–04–4.