The Neolithic Age/3 – The Burials in Vicofertile
Within an area roughly 5 by 10 meters wide, five burials dating to the 5th millennium BCE were uncovered. Each individual had been laid on their left side in a simple pit grave.
At the center of this small burial cluster was the grave of a woman aged between 40 and 50. She was buried with a small square-rimmed vessel, a finely crafted San Martino-type olletta made from fine clay, and a unique 20-centimeter-tall female figurine—an extraordinary find with no known parallels in Neolithic northern Italy. All three items—the two vessels and the figurine—were low-fired, likely made quickly at the time of her death, specifically to be buried with her.
The figurine depicts a seated woman with long hair, an oval face, slit-like eyes, and a prominent beak-shaped nose. Her arms, bent at right angles, extend from her sides and meet at the waist. The figure’s stiffness, thinness and exaggerated facial features—along with the absence of a mouth—suggest a symbolic, sacred figure. Her appearance seems to reflect the chthonic aspect of a goddess, perhaps evoking the bird-goddess described by the scholar Marija Gimbutas: a powerful deity associated with life, death, and rebirth.
Flanking the central burial on either side were two individuals, each interred in their own grave: a child aged 7 or 8, laid with two polished stone axes placed in front of the face; and a young man, aged 20 to 30, who held in his hands a 4-centimeter fragment of an obsidian blade and a small Collecchio-type axe.
At the edges of the group lay two more men, also aged 20 to 30, both without accompanying grave goods.