Grotta Romanelli: Medieval burials discovered at the Paleolithic site

The Center for Applied Physics, Dating and Diagnostics (CEDAD) at the University of Salento has radiocarbon dated three burials discovered in the Romanelli Cave in Castro, Puglia. The study, published in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences, reveals for the first time a previously unknown reuse of the cave for funerary purposes during the medieval period.

The analyses, conducted using accelerator mass spectrometry, involved the remains of one adult and two children preserved at the Museum of Anthropology in Naples. The dates place the adult between 1302 and 1411 AD, while the two children are dated between 1423-1455 and 1435-1489 respectively, confirming the cave's use during a complex period in Salento's history.

The research, led by Professor Raffaele Sardella of Sapienza University of Rome, now assigns a broader historical scope to Grotta Romanelli: no longer just a key site of the Mediterranean Paleolithic, but a place continuously inhabited over millennia, with many enigmas still to be unraveled.

Romanelli Cave, located in Castro in the province of Lecce, is one of the iconic Paleolithic sites in the Mediterranean. Discovered at the end of the nineteenth century, it has been the subject of systematic excavations since the early twentieth century, revealing important evidence of prehistoric human presence, including cave paintings and stone tools.

Until this research, it was believed that the cave had been primarily frequented in prehistoric times. The human remains analyzed had been recovered during the early twentieth-century excavations, but their precise dating had remained uncertain. The interdisciplinary team led by Professor Sardella, in charge of the excavations since 2015, decided to apply modern dating techniques to clarify the chronology of the burials.

The new analyses by CEDAD thus revealed a completely unexpected phase of use: between the 14th and 15th centuries AD, during the Middle Ages, the cave was reused as a burial site. This discovery raises new questions about the medieval communities of Salento and the reasons that led them to bury their dead in a site already laden with millennia of significance, significantly expanding the history of the archaeological site.