Among the calcareous rock walls of Pizzo Castellaro, on Monte San Fratello, which is part of the Nebrodi chain, in the territory of Acquedolci, a municipality in the province of Messina along the Tyrrhenian coast, facing the Aeolian Islands, is the Grotta di S. Teodoro, a natural cavity that opens into the wall of a high cliff and dominates a terrace now located between 80 and 130 meters above sea level. The cavity, of vast dimensions (60 meters long, 20 wide, up to 20 high) even if with a relatively small entrance, would have been formed as a result of karst phenomena which occurred approximately between 8 and 10 million years ago. and represents a very rich source of knowledge on the fauna of prehistoric Sicily.
Thanks to the analysis of the fossil remains of the animals found inside, we can obtain information on what the existing fauna was, reconstructed on site in an interesting open-air museum itinerary: deer, bears, wolves, vultures and other birds, turtles, but also wild boars, wild oxen, rodents and foxes. Some species frequented the cave as a shelter (hyena, wolf, fox) and to consume their prey (wild boar, fallow deer, hare), the same hunted by human communities who also frequented the area. In addition, there are also fossil remains of extinct animals such as the primeval ox, the elephant, the endemic deer, and the small wild horse.
To these is added a substantial quantity of shells and snails, probably the remains of meals which, in addition to recalling the geological period in which the sea reached these mountains, demonstrate the integration of human nutrition consisting not only of game and wild. Finally, in the external area in front of the cave, that of the lake basin, numerous remains of (prehistoric) hippopotamuses have emerged.
In addition to the animal fossil finds, there are also numerous ones relating to the lithic industry represented by multiple obsidian tools, probably coming from the nearby Aeolian Islands, and from the native rocks of the area, such as flint, used to make small tools, and quartzite for large ones.
The cave was inhabited by prehistoric people in a time span between 12.000 and 8.000 years BC, which from a cultural point of view represents the last phase of the Italian Upper Paleolithic called final Epigravettian, and in any case for a very long time until the modern era ( passing through the Bronze Age and the Greek and Roman periods).
The peculiarity and the great importance of the cave, which can be considered one of the most important Paleolithic sites in the Mediterranean, are represented by the discovery of the first Sicilian Paleolithic burials, which at the moment can be considered the most consistent testimony of the first human settlement of Sicily to date available: skeletal remains of seven individuals, classifiable in the Cro-Magnon or Homo Sapiens species, with different degrees of completeness and conservation, in total five skulls and two exceptionally complete skeletons, exhibited in various Italian museums. There are also potentially older fragmentary remains, such as those from the sites of Fontana Nuova (RG) and Grotta dei Cervi, on the island of Levanzo (TP), for which, however, there are still problems relating to the dating in association with the stratigraphic surveys in which they have been found.
Among the complete skeletons of S. Teodoro, the most important find is represented by the fossil remains of a woman of about 30 years, 165 cm tall, who lived between 14 and 11 years ago and to whom the name of Thea has been attributed ( from the Latin Theodora) to connect it to that of the cave (Fig.1). Starting from the study of the skull, through sophisticated techniques (from the CAT scan on the bone remains to the plaster cast up to the reconstruction in clay and the final finishing touches), and thanks to the collaboration of anthropologists and scholars of the evolution of the Gemmellaro Museum in Palermo, it was possible three-dimensional reconstruction of the woman's face, which had very marked features with an oblong face and protruding jaw (Fig.2). Furthermore, the analysis of the skeleton has also returned positive results: the bones are intact and free from wear and tear, therefore in life they had not been subjected to particular workloads; scholars therefore believe that the state of the teeth, almost perfect - which suggests that Thea was free from chewing and feeding problems - and of the bones lead us to think that the woman must have belonged to a high class and that, therefore, she can be treated of a priestess or a prehistoric princess. As for the circumstances of the death, it seems to have occurred due to complications related to the second birth.
The burial ritual (Fig.3) consisted in placing the deceased in a shallow grave in a supine position or on the left side (as in the case of Thea), with the arms along the sides, surrounded by animal bones, small pebbles and ornaments composed of "twelve elements of a necklace consisting of twelve perforated canines of deer elaphus, found together with the remains of the deceased and probably forming part of his funeral equipment" (Graziosi, 1947). In this case, if deer canines "really constituted a necklace, it would be the only female subject in possession of animal teeth attested in the Italian peninsula" (Gazzoni, 2010, p. 123). Once the deposition was completed, this was covered with a light layer of earth and sprinkled with red ochre.
As the paleontologist Prof. Maria Laura Leone points out, the burials of the Upper Paleolithic have many common characteristics, such as the choice of caves for inhuming the deceased, the burial ritual itself, and the personal ornaments with which the body was adorned. An essential element that characterizes the spirituality and funerary symbolism is the great use of red ocher: it was in fact ascertained that the deceased person could be stretched out on an entire bed of ocher or even be completely covered in it; in other cases ocher was used only on certain parts of the body, preferably the head, or pebbles painted with this substance could be added to the grave goods. In numerous cases, the head had certainly been stained red: the ocher colour, recalling blood, symbolized the life-giving power. In the Upper Paleolithic, red ochre, derived from iron oxide, also known as natural hematite, was traded, and like flint and shells it was precious and therefore much sought after and imported from considerable distances.
The main burials in Italy dating back to this era are essentially concentrated in Liguria, ai Balzi Rossi and Arena Candide. In Puglia they are present in the Paglicci caves, Venus, S. Maria of Agnano and Grotta delle Mura. All, from north to south, have common ritual denominators. In the case of the skeletons of the Grotta di S. Teodoro, there is an example of notable use of red ocher, in which the layer reaches 5 cm. Here, furthermore, Prof. Leone highlights, the habit was found, also attested elsewhere, of placing heavy stones on the limbs of the deceased.
Historical notes
The first explorations of the site of S. Teodoro took place in 1859 by its discoverer, the palaeoethnologist Baron Francesco Anca di Mangalavite. Since then there have been several inspections, surveys and excavation campaigns by numerous scholars: Gemmellaro in 1867, De Gregorio in 1925, Vaufrey in 1928. The first human remains, belonging to a complete individual, were found in 1937, the practically intact skeleton bones with perfect teeth, and then the others in the excavation campaigns conducted by Profs. Graziosi and Maviglia until 1942.
The deposit of the cave was composed of a stratigraphy of overlapping soils in which the remains of human occupation are preserved: hearths, animal bones belonging mostly to meal remains and an abundant lithic industry belonging to the final phase of the Upper Paleolithic (about 12000 -8000 years BC). After the first exceptional discovery under a first layer of sterile loam and a second of organic material (food leftovers, coal and flint), the remains belonging to six other individuals emerged, of which only the skulls and a few bones, generally joints: only another skeleton, also discovered in 42 by Maviglia and Graziosi themselves, almost complete in which the entire thoracic part up to the pelvis had been removed (“When we started excavating the hip bones surfaced in the section; we then found the pelvis, the entire lower limbs, the right forearm with the distal end of the humerus, ... of the left arm only a few bones of the hand remained, which lay below the iliac bone as if the corpse were was buried with the left hand placed below the gluteal region ... near the left femur at the level of the hand, we found the end of a deer's antler branch and here and there some other fragment of bone from the same animal ... They gave the 'impression of having been intentionally placed next to the corpse ...” (Graziosi, 1947). Despite the numerous finds that emerged during the first excavation campaigns, it was only in the 80s that studies continued with Prof. Laura Bonfiglio and research also began on the external area in front of the Grotto and the nearby Riparo Maria. From these excavations, which lasted until the 2000s, other fossil finds emerged at depths varying between a few decimeters and 5 metres, testifying to the succession of geological events and the presence of various types of fauna. The determination of the female sex to the intact remains of Thea always dates back to these years.
Also in recent years, a revision by Prof. Mallegni with the collaboration of Pier Francesco Fabbri of the Scuola Normale of Pisa and Luigi Bachechi of the Italian Institute of Prehistory of Florence of the other complete skeleton, which belonged to a woman who died young age (20-25 years), has highlighted on the external face of the right hip a trace of a wound with still the remains of the flint tip fixed in a bone. According to Prof. Mallegni it is the oldest real document of wounds on human remains, given that it dates back to the final upper Paleolithic, while until now only signs of wounds had been found without knowing with which weapon they had been procured. This type of lesion in the Upper Paleolithic was in fact known only through the representations of rock art. Following these new analyses, the scholars have therefore hypothesized the backdating of the use of bows and arrows to about 13 thousand years ago, i.e. a good four millennia earlier than what archaeologists had assumed so far.
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