Intellectual and spiritual expression in central Sardinia during the Neolithic and Bronze Age: the Seulo Caves Project

Abstract

Following the identification of nine prehistoric ritual caves in the inner part of Central Sardinia near the village of Seulo (Figure 1), an international research project called ‘Journeys to the Underworld: Ritual Transformations of Persons, Objects, and Caves in Prehistoric Central Sardinia’, directed by Dr Robin Skeates, started in 2009. The aims of the research were twofold: 1) to establish the diversity of natural caves and their human uses in the area; and 2) to understand how some of these caves and their natural features were selectively and variously modified from natural spaces into sacred places, especially during later prehistory. The area, never investigated before from an archaeological viewpoint, proved to be rewarding because each cave contained rich prehistoric ritual deposits that could be assigned to between the Middle Neolithic and the Final Bronze Age (c. 4700 – 850 cal BC). The caves range from wide rock-shelters to small chambers, long corridors, and large complex cave systems, and all appear to have been used for the performance of rituals, some of a type previously identified elsewhere in the Central Mediterranean region (e.g. Whitehouse 1992). These ritual practices can be regarded as intellectual and spiritual expressions of the human groups that performed them, as can aspects of the pottery used in these contexts.