Ricerc@Sapienza

Although the amount of data on the Italian Copper Age has increased significantly in the last decades, little is known about the relationship between humans and the environment. Material culture suggests the occurrence of significant social interactions throughout the Italian Peninsula, while the funerary practices indicate that Copper Age groups were strongly rooted in their territories. Here, we attempt to define the relations within Copper Age groups by investigating one of the main culturally-constructed aspects of a society: dietary practices.

The Copper Age in Italy (4000-2300 BCE) is represented mostly by funerary contexts, with many cultural practices still under debate. The funerary ritual is expressed by burials in artificial or natural hypogea, often used for collective burials over a long period, as witnessed by secondary depositions and radiocarbon dates. Grave goods are scarce if related to the number of inhumed, suggesting a specific socio-cultural relation within individuals of the same funerary structure, but our understanding of daily life is influenced by the ritual aspects of these contexts.