Ritual, Context, and Gender in Neolithic South-Eastern Italy

An attempt to demonstrate the importance of a contextual approach in the interpretation of pre-historic ritual is made through a critique of Ruth Whitehouse's recent work, Underground Religion. Cult and culture in prehistoric ltllly, and through a re-examination of the spatial, material, historical, and social context of the ritual use of caves in south-eastem Italy, with special reference to Grotta di Porto Badisco and other Neolithic and early-Copper-Age sites in the Salento peninsula. Alternative interpretations are offered which focus upon: variations over space and time in the use of caves for different activities; a notion of complementarity and mutuality in Neolithic gender relations; and the existence of a degree of male-bias in the archaeological evidence of the symbolic construction of gender in Grotta di Porto Badisco.