THE GROTTA DELLE VENERI APULIA, ITALY
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-10-14

The Grotta delle Veneri (“Venuses Cave”) at Parabita (Lecce, Italy) is one of the most important prehistoric caves of Italian prehistory. It is located in Apulia, in the Salento peninsula, and it is known for its extraordinary artistic manifestations related to Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, including two Venus figurines that gave their name of the cave. Its importance lies in its very long history, that includes the recent phases of the Neolithic as well as the Metal Ages. After the Palaeolithic, the cave was in use from the beginning of the 6th millennium BC until the Bronze Age, even if with differences in terms of intensity and use during the different periods. Indicators of wide-ranging contacts have been identified, including symbolic artefacts, pottery vessels with shapes and decorations that testify cultural and trade connections with both the West and the East, particularly with Sicily and with the Eastern Adriatic regions. They document the capability of the Salento communities to participate in the wide circulation of ideas, goods and knowledge that permeated the Mediterranean from the 6th to the 2nd millennium BC. Obsidian and copper items were recovered in the Grotta delle Veneri, uncommon artefacts produced with non-local raw materials. The metal objects were made of pure copper and arsenic-copper alloys. Only a few caves maintained, during the Southern Italian Copper Age, an exclusively cult function, such as Grotta delle Veneri: the votive deposition of valuable objects may have expressed the desire to preserve the beneficial relationships with the spirits of the underground world.


Author(s): Giardino, Claudio - Tiberi, Ida (University of Salento)