San Felice Circeo, Italy | Jun 1 2022
The Guattari Cave in San Felice Circeo, located on the Italian coast between Rome and Naples, hides a history of life and death marked by cannibalism and hyenas, according to archaeologists working at the Paleolithic site.
In 1939, Italian archaeologist Alessandro Guattari found one of Europe’s oldest Neanderthal skulls in the cave, named after him following the major discovery.
The skull, which Guattari found by chance in the middle of a circle of stones, had a large hole in it, as if it had been intentionally broken. This led to the hypothesis that the ancient inhabitants of San Felice Circeo, also known as the Neanderthals, practiced rituals of cannibalism.
“The fact that the skull had been intentionally broken and that the brain had been subsequently removed, suggested cannibalism. This hypothesis had a great impact on the collective imagination and became the most famous story of the Guattari cave,” Italian archaeologist Francesco di Mario, head of excavations at the Guattari Cave, tells Efe.
But today, over 80 years later, the hypothesis has taken a turn after archaeologists recently discovered hundreds of animal bones that had been devoured by hyenas.
“With our work we came to the conclusion that all the human remains found were taken there by large carnivores, probably hyenas,” di Mario adds.
Among the hundreds of animal bones found were the remains of rhinoceros, an extinct giant deer, a cave bear and an elephant, confirming that a pack of hyenas were responsible for the demise of Neanderthals in Italy, not cannibalism.
“Pleistocene hyenas became extinct 20,000 years ago and were much larger than the ones we know now. They were the top predators in this region and were at the top of the food chain,” di Mario continues, adding that the new discoveries showed a “history of death”.
Gilda Iadicicco, editor of the official documents of the discoveries, added that archaeologists recently discovered that the Neanderthals lived outside the cave rather than inside, as was previously believed.
Anomalous Last Interglacial Tyrrhenian sea levels and Neanderthal settling at Guattari and Moscerini caves (central Italy)
Through the reconstruction of the surfaces of ancient sea terraces (T) and the re-examination of sea-level indicators (LdM) the ancient coastlines between Anzio and Gaeta (a, b, c) have been reconstructed. Particularly useful for the reconstruction were the beach and dune deposits present inside several caves that open on the cliffs between Circeo and Gaeta (c). A new dating made on a fossil shells in the locality of Quadrato has confirmed earlier dates made by paleoanthropologists in Grotta Guattari and Grotta dei Moscerini. These two caves are in fact rich in evidence of Neanderthalian presence in periods when the sea level was close to their entrance [Credit: INGV]
The discovery of unexpected changes in the Mediterranean Sea in the Tyrrhenian period (124,000 – 80,000 years ago) is a useful element in the assessment of sea level rise as a result of melting ice caused by global warming. This is the result of the study conducted by a team of researchers from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) in collaboration with the Department of History of Tor Vergata University and the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of FR, LT and RI, just published in Scientific Reports.
“This helps us understand how they lived,” she says.
Eight more Neanderthal bodies have been discovered around the cave, dating from 100,000 years ago to 50,000 years ago.
The cave is not open to the public yet, but the mayor of San Felice Circeo hopes it will help revive the seaside town’s tourism and economy.
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