ARENE CANDIDE

Arene Candide is a spacious and pleasant cave in Liguria in northwestern Italy directly overlooking the Mediterranean, midway between Genoa and the French border. The opening is in a cliff face 90 meters above sea level. Arene Candide means "white sands," referring to a sand dune that once lay against the cliff (which was quarried during the twentieth century). The dune probably never provided access to the cave, however, which could be approached only by a path from above. The topography is steep; even at the height of the last glacial period, when sea level was more than 100 meters lower than it is now, the cave was only a few kilometers from the sea.

The cave has seen excavation since the nineteenth century, but most information comes from two twentieth-century campaigns. Luigi Bernabò Brea and Luigi Cardini carried out a classic excavation in 1940–1942, continuing in 1948–1950. Unusually for their time, they excavated by stratigraphic layers rather than by arbitrary levels, and they used screening to recover small objects. Many samples of various types of material (among them charcoal and shells) also were taken. The findings of these excavations were published in part by the excavators. Full publication of the material by a team of specialists was led by Roberto Maggi. A second major excavation was undertaken by Santo Tinè in 1972–1977, which also has been published.

The excavations revealed many stratigraphic layers extending into the Pleistocene. Most of the available material is Neolithic, although Cardini excavated terminal Pleistocene deposits. In 1942 a sondage, a narrow test pit into the deeper layers, was excavated into the lower layers. The bottom of the cave was never reached, but on 1 May 1942 a spectacular find was made: an Upper Palaeolithic burial belonging to the Gravettian culture. The skeleton was of a young male adult, nicknamed il Principe (the prince) because of his rich grave goods. These items comprised three decorated objects made of moose antler, a long flint blade, and hundreds of snail shells that probably were used to decorate a hat (which has decayed). The skeleton has been radiocarbon dated to c. 24,000–23,000 b.p. (c. 22,000–21,000 b.c.). Even more significant, analysis of carbon isotopes in his bones (which reveal diet because seafood contains more carbon 13 than other foods) shows that 20 to 25 percent of his diet was marine foods—a reflection of the short distance to the seashore in his day.

Later in the Pleistocene there was substantial Epigravettian occupation in the period 13,000–11,000 b.p. (11,000–9000 b.c.). At the start of this period the cave was used for burials. Some eighteen individuals were excavated, making this Europe's largest Pleistocene cemetery. The grave goods were rich. There was much red ochre (and several ochre grinders) as well as red deer canines, perforated pebbles and shells, beaver mandibles, and skeletons of corncrakes and choughs (small birds in the crane and crow families, respectively). Most common were tail vertebrae from red squirrels; perhaps squirrel tails were stitched onto clothing.

At the start of the Holocene the site was abandoned. There are few traces of Mesolithic settlement anywhere in Liguria. As a result, when the cave was reoccupied at the start of the Neolithic, one can be sure that the population had immigrated—perhaps from somewhere along the Italian coast to the southeast. The earliest agricultural immigrants arrived around 5700–5600 b.c., based on a direct date from a grain of barley. These people were makers of Impresso pottery, so-called because of its impressed decoration; over about the next two centuries this style evolved into the classic Cardial style, decorated with impressions of the edges of cockle (or Cardium) shells. In addition to cereals and perhaps pulses, the farmers kept domestic cattle and sheep; the latter may have been milked, which would be a very early example of dairying. Goats were apparently absent until the Middle Neolithic. There may have been wild pigs, but most of the meat came from domestic stock.

Cardial pottery and agriculture spread very rapidly along the coasts of France, Spain, and southern Portugal. How this was accomplished is debated. Some researchers argue that local Mesolithic hunter-fishers played a crucial role and others that Neolithic immigrants were responsible. Arene Candide lies near the start of the Cardial expansion, and as already seen, agriculture must have reached the site via an immigration; this may support the immigrant Neolithic argument elsewhere in the western Mediterranean.

The Early Neolithic at Arene Candide continued until about 4900–4700 b.c. Occupation during this period was not particularly intensive and may have been intermittent or seasonal. Contacts with coastal communities to the west are suggested by small amounts of flint from southern France and also by the importation of large pottery vessels made elsewhere and imported as finished objects. These vessels probably were too large to carry overland, given the steep topography, and might have been carried by boat.

The start of the Middle Neolithic is marked by an abrupt transition to bocca quadrata (square-mouth) pottery. Much more archaeological material is found for this time period, and the cave by then probably was a permanently occupied base. For the first time, there was contact across the Ligurian Mountains with the interior of northern Italy: some 12 percent of the flint was imported from an Alpine source. There is evidence of many domestic activities. Cereal pollen is common, and the numerous querns suggest that it was ground inside the cave. Animals were stalled inside the cave, too; soil micro-morphology (the microscopic analysis of soil particles) shows that the animals' bedding was burned from time to time. This bedding was made of plant material, including a species of heather, represented by its pollen and charcoal.

The Late Neolithic started just before 4000 b.c., and during this period there was a diminution of occupational intensity. The cultural transition again is rapid, with the appearance of the Chassey type of pottery (reddish in color, fine walled, undecorated but polished, and well made), similar to that in southern France. A French connection also is revealed by the fact that over half of all the flint was imported from the Rhône delta. After the Late Neolithic, occupation declined further. Intermittent occupation took place through the Bronze Age, with later traces of a little Iron Age and Roman occupation at the top.

Arene Candide is one of the key sequences of the western Mediterranean, thanks partly to its well-preserved stratigraphy and partly to the quality of the excavations by Bernabò Brea and Cardini. New information continues to come from the site and doubtless will do so for many years to come.

See alsoCaldeirão Cave (vol. 1, part 3).

bibliography

Bernabò Brea, Luigi. Gli Scavi nella Caverna delle AreneCandide. 2 vols. Bordighera, Italy: Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri, 1946 (vol. 1), 1956 (vol. 2).

Binder, Didier, and Roberto Maggi. "Le Néolithique ancien de l'arc liguro-provençal." Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française 98, no. 3 (2001): 411–422.

Cardini, Luigi. "La necropoli mesolitica delle Arene Candide (Liguria)." Memorie dell'Istituto Italiano di Paleontologia Umana 3 (1980): 9–31.

Maggi, R., ed. Arene Candide: A Functional and Environmental Assessment of the Holocene Sequence (Excavations Bernabò Brea–Cardini, 1940–50). Memorie dell'Istituto Italiano di Paleontologia Umana, no. 5. Rome: Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, 1997.

Pettitt, P. B., M. Richards, R. Maggi, and V. Formicola. "The Gravettian Burial Known as the Prince ('Il Principe'): New Evidence for His Age and Diet." Antiquity 77 (2003): 15–19.

Rowley-Conwy, Peter. "From Arene Candide to the Atlantic: The Bernabò Brea Excavations and Early Domestic Animals in the West Mediterranean." In Atti del Convegno in Onore di Luigi Bernabò Brea. Edited by G. Spadea and E. Starnini. Rome: Ministry of Culture, forthcoming.

Tinè, Santo, ed. Il Neolitico nella Caverna delle Arene Candide (Scavi 1972–1977). Collezione di Monografie Preistoriche ed Archeologiche, no. 10. Bordighera, Italy: Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri, 1999.

Zilhão, João. "Radiocarbon Evidence for Maritime Pioneer Colonization at the Origins of Farming in West Mediterranean Europe." Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 98, no. 24 (2001): 14,180–14,185.

Peter Rowley-Conwy