Il problema dell’inumazione nel mondo veneto durante l’età del Ferro tra ritualità e mobilità. Nuovi dati bioarcheologici dalla necropoli patavina del CUS-Piovego

The inhumation in Veneto represents an important topic in the panorama of studies on the Early and Middle Iron Age in northern Italy. To better define this issue and propose new interpretative hypotheses based on both the information from old excavations and recently published/revised data, the centers of Este and Padua were chosen as case studies and, in this framework, the CUS-Piovego cemetery of Padua was specifically analyzed. The ceme- tery, dated between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 4th centuries BCE, returned cremations – prevailing – inhumations, horse burials, and the burial of a man and a horse. Since according to the most accredited archaeological interpretations about the inhumation phenomenon in Veneto, the inhumed individuals might have been foreigners and/or belonged to a lower social rank, a strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis was performed on 19 inhumed individuals of the CUS-Piovego cemetery to highlight possible relations between funerary rituals and mobility dynamics at the site.