Abstract
A geoarchaeological study was carried out in the Santuario della Madonna Cave, in northwestern Calabria. The site is a karst cave formed in Tertiary dolomite-limestone, reshaped by the sea during the Quaternary. Archaeological findings in the sedimentary infilling attest to human settlement since prehistoric times. We focused on the Holocene pedostratigraphic succession, comprising thinly laminated loamy-sand layers, overlying a soil with finer texture, illuvial clay coatings and hydromorphic features. The stratigraphy was characterized by physical, chemical, mineralogical and micromorphological analyses, in order to characterise human activities, landscape evolution and environmental changes. Major geomorphological stability during the Middle Neolithic climatic optimum was followed by rapid oscillations in the moisture regime and morphodynamics during the Late Neolithic to the Copper and Bronze Ages. Water dripping, CaCO3 leaching and precipitation, humification, runoff and colluviation all alternated and were interspersed by periods of human activity (stabling, in situ burning, setting of poles).
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