Le sepolture di subadulti in Etruria Padana fra VI e III sec. a.C.

Abstract

The research project was directed to the systematic analysis of the depositions of subadults in the Etruscan Po Valley from the 6th century to the 3rd century BC. The interdisciplinary methodological approach brings this work closer to the circuit of European and international studies concerning gender issues, which have been conducting research dedicated to the children's sector in the Greek and Roman fields for years, with a significant gap for the Etruscan area. The reconstruction of the regional framework allows to outline the funeral treatment connected to the non-adult age classes, addressing issues such as demographic representativeness, the access of the various age classes to formal burial, the evolution in the representation of childhood / adolescence in the funerary ritual, the presence of internal articulations to the various age groups, the choice of spaces for burial. In this regard, it was decided to develop a systemic approach, aimed at the analysis of subadult individuals within the context in a double perspective, local and regional, taking into account the complex funerary dialectic based on the interaction between age class, gender, status and ethnic-cultural identity.

After a preliminary methodological framework, the research was directed to the regional context, first recovering the documentation published for the previous phases (first Iron Age and Orientalizing period) and then focusing in a timely manner on the individual case studies. The possibility of extensively investigating the phenomenon has been made possible by access to an exceptional heritage of funerary attestations, which amounts to about 3000 burials datable between the 6th-2nd century BC. In particular, the research involved the attestations coming from the funerary areas of Bologna (Certosa, Aureli, Arnoaldi, De Luca – Battistini, Giardini Margherita), Spina (Valle Trebba), Adria (Ca' Garzoni, Canal Bianco, Piantamelon, Retratto) and the city of Marzabotto, currently granted in study to the Chair of Etruscology and Pre-Roman Studies of the University of Bologna.

After a brief history of research and studies, the analysis focused on the reconstruction of the local ritual, framing themes such as the articulation of the rite in the different age classes and the spatial distribution of the burials. The detailed analysis of these contexts was then accompanied by the recovery of the documentation published for the other sites in the region, in order to frame the various local declinations of the ritual and the diachronic evolution both locally and regionally.

The comparison of data from different sites, investigated at different times and with different methodologies, immediately highlighted some problems related to the quality of the archaeological documentation, coming largely from old excavations. The study was then accompanied by a careful methodological reflection aimed at focusing on the specific problems of the research (such as the "visibility" of the subadults in the funerary record) and the strategies necessary to investigate the theme, which can be better defined with detailed analysis, aimed at enhancing variations of different nature (for example related to status, the ethnic-cultural context, the specificities of the sites, the choices of the individual groups, etc.) and above all with the contribution of new excavations that provide an exhaustive documentation and integrated with anthropological analysis. [edited by Author]