From sepulchre to butchery-cooking: Facies analysis, taphonomy and stratigraphy of the Upper Palaeolithic post burial layer from the San Teodoro Cave (NE Sicily) reveal change in the use of the site

Abstract

of Sicily from the Italian continent. Furthermore the site is a paradigmatic horizon in the Pleistocene faunal record, demonstrating a progressive transition from mega faunas to smaller-sized, Boreal, faunas. The site has been repeatedly studied and excavated, with different aims and approaches, leading to an interpretation of Epigravettian burial site and daily attendance. Here we propose a reappraisal of the study of the stratigraphy of the site, and in particular of the bone-rich layer (PAL) accumulated over the red ochre layer that apparently sealed all the different burials, with the exception of one. The study has been conducted starting from a new, consistent collection of materials from the PAL layer previously identified by Bonfiglio and co-authors, and moved from the morphological and microscopical identification of faunal remains and their taphonomy, to the accurate geological, petrographical and pedological definition of the sediments by stereomicroscope (SM), polarized light microscope (PLM) and X-Ray diffractometry (XRD) analyses. We propose the first 14C AMS dating of the layer PAL, performed on a Bos primigenius sample that has been dated to 12624 ± 59 BC, 15224–14708 cal yr BP. This date does not differ much from the dates obtained with analogous methodology on buried human remains. Despite the difficulty of a reconstruction of biological times and human behaviours that are not chronologically traceable, we can nonetheless state that the site had at least two main moments of attendance in the late Upper Palaeolithic: one linked to burials, excavated in a cave still sporadically visited by humans, and a second period of intense attendance, industrial production of quartz arenite lithics and rare flint, intensive slaughter of late-glacial Boreal fauna and presence of many combustion residues.