habitat rupestre.pdf - Società Friulana di Archeologia

CLASSIFICATION OF RUPESTRIAN SETTLEMENTSCRHIMA-CINP projectThe Grotta Parco della Vigna and the Grotta della Breccia inMartina Franca (Taranto) are rock shelters that have been recentlyexplored in Puglia. These are wide shelters on the eastcliff of the Orimini inferiore ravine, which runs 3.3 kilometresin the southern sloping hills of Martina Franca, towards theIonian Sea. The two caves are divided by a prominent rockyridge. The presence of bone breccias along the walls and of arich paleo-soil confirms the use of both caves in the NeanderthalEra in primary occurrence.Outside the caves, the cliff slopes down to the bottom of theravine: a secondary occurrence prehistoric deposit, protectedby vegetation, has been found in this area.Thousands Mousterian stone and osteologic artefacts accumulatedand emerged in alluviums. The examination of the rawmaterial of stone tools has been carried out on the 2119 archaeologicalfinds, which the Soprintendenza Archeologica diPuglia consigned to the Museum of Egnazia. The 80% of theartefacts is made of sedimentary and volcanic rocks, whichare known to be strong and compact: dark grey ftanyte, jasper,quartzite, quartz arenite, schist, basalt and radiolarite. Thesestones are common in Calabria and Basilicata. The calcareousraw material comes from Puglia, as the archaeological findsin the Palaeolithic atelier of Donna Lucrezia, between CeglieMessapica and Villa Castelli. The rest of the artefacts aremade of flint from Gargano. The exploration of shelters in theravines of Puglia (as the above mentioned Manisi shelter) hasestablished that the man was living in the region more than70000 years ago.3. RupestrianThe word “rupestrian” is an adjective that is related to housesor structures that have been excavated in a cliff. Rupestriansettlements can be found in the circum-Mediterranean area, inAsia Minor, in Africa, in Spain, in France, in the Balkans, inGreece, in Southern Italy and in its islands.Italy has a wide land surrounded by three seas (the Tyrrheniansea, the Ionian sea and the Adriatic sea), with the offshoots ofthe Apennine that create limited elevations.The experts (and not people in general) know that many rupestriansettlements are in this territory. They are more or lessdirectly (but not exclusively) connected to the Byzantine heritage,with specific regional variations.On the western Tyrrhenian coast, the presence of natural cavesis relevant: human intervention was limited to the arrangementof the entrances; if the caves were places of worship, theinterventions were limited to the insertion of shrines, altars orsimilar liturgical equipment and, later, statues.Frescos have been painted on the walls of caves in differentepochs, sometimes they were overlapped. They are oftensmall fragments that risk a total deletion, which is a severedamage for the future knowledge on medieval painting, sincerupestrian painting is fundamental part of it.The northern area of Puglia (on the eastern Adriatic cost)includes the Daunian Apennine, Gargano, and the SacredMountain (with the cave of the Archangel’s Appartition andmany different natural caves). Central and southern Pugliawas included in the Otranto Land until the 17th century. Therupestrian settlements were concentrated in ravines created byrivers (now totally dried) or in less deep cracks in the ground,perpendicular to the ravines, the so called lame.This area is a sort of macro zone, which is associated becauseof their calcarenite bed. This is a compact and soft material:this characteristic allowed the excavation of many caves. Oftenthey were linked, and some of them (though not the majority)were places of worship, with liturgical structures and frescos.These settlements were populated until the 15th /17th century,when they have been mostly abandoned and forgotten.They were discovered again in the early decades of the lastcentury. At first, they have been identified with hermitages,then they have been classified as cenobitic structures of Greekmonks, similar to the contemporaneously discovered settlementsin Cappadocia, under a panmonastic vision of the phenomenon.In any case, historians of art have concentrated theirefforts on wall paintings. After archaeologists and architectshave conducted deeper studies on the insufficient existingdocumentation on the settlements and their historic and environmentalcontexts. The concept of the rupestrian habitat hasbeen widened through the formulation of many questions onthe choice of “living in caves”. This has helped a better comprehensionof the rupestrian phenomenon, which has broughtto new and innovative studies on related aspects, such as viability,techniques of excavation, architectural typologies andrelationship with built architecture.4. HypogealThe word “hypogeal” is an adjective that is referred to housesor complexes excavated underground. Often it is used as a synonymof “rupestrian”, but there is a slight distinction needed.Fig. 2 Natural cave. (photo: guidastcs)Fig. 3 Rock shelters. The house in the rock. (photo: Oberti)volumeRicerca_OK_2012-11-15.indd 42 16/11/2012 15:00:58