Reconstruction
Deep in Lamalunga Cave on southern Italy’s Murge plateau lies one of Europe’s most remarkable human fossils. Speleologists discovered the Altamura Neanderthal in 1993, scattered within a narrow chamber now called the Abside dell’uomo. The cranium is inverted among stalactites and flowstone, while other bones occupy the surrounding niche and an inaccessible cavity behind it. Calcite concretions have effectively fastened much of the skeleton to the cave. They obstruct examination, but their gradual formation also helped preserve exceptionally delicate structures, including parts of the nasal cavity rarely retained in fossil humans.
Morphology and mitochondrial DNA identify the individual as an early Neanderthal. Uranium-series measurements on calcite associated with the remains indicate a chronology between approximately 172 ± 15 and 130.1 ± 1.9 thousand years ago. This is a dating bracket rather than a precise lifetime. The adult had heavily worn teeth, had lost two upper teeth before death, and possessed a dental lesion. Wear can be influenced by food and by non-dietary use of the teeth, but the Altamura observations do not identify particular ingredients or a final meal.
The cave therefore supplies no direct menu. No stone tools, hearths, food residues, or securely butchered animal bones have been reported beside the skeleton. Although Lamalunga contains deer, equid, bovid, hyena, wolf, and other faunal remains, researchers interpret the system primarily as a natural accumulation or death-trap context. These animals cannot simply be listed as the individual’s prey. The position of the bones and absence of evident transport by water or carnivores support the probable interpretation that the person decomposed where the remains now lie, perhaps after entering or falling into the cave, although the cause of death remains unknown.
Broader Neanderthal evidence provides context, not an Altamura-specific reconstruction. At other Eurasian sites, cut-marked and fractured animal bones document the processing of large game and marrow. Dental calculus and charred remains demonstrate that some Neanderthals also consumed starchy plants, pulses, grass seeds, nuts, fungi, and other locally available foods; certain starches and carbonized mixtures show cooking or pounding. It is therefore reasonable to imagine flexible foraging in the landscapes around Altamura, but assigning any particular food or preparation method to this individual would exceed the evidence.
Altamura’s importance to food history is consequently indirect. Its unusually complete anatomy anchors the study of the people whose diets are reconstructed more directly elsewhere. It also cautions against treating a single “Neanderthal diet” as a fixed modern template. Archaeology instead reveals geographically variable combinations of hunting, gathering, processing, and cooking, without a demonstrable culinary lineage connecting this individual to a specific food eaten today.
Historical context
Roughly 172,000–130,000 years ago, Europe passed through much of Marine Isotope Stage 6, a generally cold glacial interval that ended near the beginning of the warmer last interglacial. Sea level was substantially below its modern position, and mobile human groups occupied shifting mosaics of grassland, woodland, and steppe. Agriculture, permanent towns, and pottery did not exist; food came from hunting, scavenging, gathering, and other forms of wild-resource exploitation. Neanderthal anatomy was developing from earlier European populations, while Homo sapiens was already present in Africa. The global human population is unknown but was extremely small and dispersed by later standards.
Evidence
Archaeological
StrongThe skeleton remains directly observable in its Lamalunga Cave context, with mapped bones, speleothems, calcite coatings, and documented spatial relationships.
Zooarchaeological
ModerateNumerous cervid, equid, bovid, carnivore, and small-mammal remains are visible in the cave, but natural deposition, carnivore activity, and possible movement complicate interpretation. They are not demonstrated food remains associated with the Neanderthal.
Residue chemical
LimitedNo published Altamura-specific dietary residue, dental-calculus food microfossil, or stable-isotope diet analysis presently identifies foods consumed by this individual.
Food identification
LimitedNo particular food is directly identified for the Altamura individual. General statements about Neanderthal meat and plant consumption derive from other sites and are contextual rather than individual evidence.
Dating
ModerateUranium-series dates from associated calcite constrain the remains to approximately 172 ± 15 to 130.1 ± 1.9 thousand years ago. These measurements bracket the fossil rather than directly dating the individual's death.
Preparation method
InterpretiveLamalunga has yielded no demonstrated hearth, food-processing installation, or lithic assemblage associated with the skeleton. Hunting, marrow extraction, pounding, and cooking are documented for Neanderthals elsewhere but cannot be assigned directly to Altamura.
Geographic attribution
StrongThe remains are securely located in Lamalunga Cave on the Murge plateau northeast of Altamura, Apulia, southern Italy.
Historical interpretation
ProbableBone positions and the absence of clear water or carnivore transport support decomposition near the present location. Entry by accident or a fall into a natural death trap is a reasonable reconstruction, but the cause of death is unresolved.
Visual reconstruction
ModerateLaser scanning, photogrammetry, endoscopy, and statistical virtual reconstruction provide detailed models based substantially on direct observations. Some inaccessible or obscured surfaces remain reconstructed rather than directly recorded.
Sources
- 1.Martina Lari et al. (2015). The Neanderthal in the karst: First dating, morphometric, and paleogenetic data on the fossil skeleton from Altamura (Italy). Journal of Human Evolution 82: 88–94. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.02.007Scientific literature
- 2.Alessandro Riga, Marco Boggioni, Andrea Papini, et al. (2020). In situ observations on the dentition and oral cavity of the Neanderthal skeleton from Altamura (Italy). PLOS ONE 15(12): e0241713. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0241713Scientific literature
- 3.Antonio Profico et al. (2023). Virtual excavation and analysis of the early Neanderthal cranium from Altamura (Italy). Communications Biology 6: 316. doi:10.1038/s42003-023-04644-1Scientific literature
- 4.Costantino Buzi, Marco Boggioni, Andrea Borsato, et al. (2024). Virtual paleoanthropology in karstic environments: The challenging case of the Neanderthal skeleton from Altamura (southern Italy). Quaternary Science Reviews 338: 108833. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108833Primary archaeology
- 5.Amanda G. Henry, Alison S. Brooks, and Dolores R. Piperno (2011). Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets (Shanidar III, Iraq; Spy I and II, Belgium). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(2): 486–491. doi:10.1073/pnas.1016868108Scientific literature
- 6.Robert C. Power, Domingo C. Salazar-García, Mauro Rubini, et al. (2018). Dental calculus indicates widespread plant use within the stable Neanderthal dietary niche. Journal of Human Evolution 119: 27–41. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2018.02.009Scientific literature
Limitations
- moderatedate start/date end
The published chronology is approximately 172 ± 15 to 130.1 ± 1.9 thousand years before present, derived from associated calcite. Treating 172,000 BCE and 130,000 BCE as exact boundaries omits measurement uncertainty, shifts a BP chronology into BCE, and may imply that the bone itself was directly dated.
