The Lovers of Valdaro: 6,000 years entwined beneath the soil of Mantua, Mondes Préhistoriques

In 2007, archaeologists near Mantua discovered two Neolithic skeletons embracing, forehead to forehead, for 6,000 years. The Lovers of Valdaro have become the symbol of the complex and poignant funerary practices of the European Neolithic.

In February 2007, during preventive excavations on a construction site near San Giorgio di Nogaro in the province of Mantua in Lombardy, archaeologists from the Lombardy Superintendency uncovered a discovery that would circle the globe: two human skeletons lying face to face, arms entwined, foreheads pressed against one another. Dating to around 6,000 years ago during the Late NeolithicNeolithicThe "New Stone Age": a period marked by farming, herding, settlement and pottery, from around 10,000 BC.→, this embracing couple was nicknamed the "Lovers of Valdaro".

Anthropological analysis revealed that both individuals had died young: the man was under 30 years old, the woman probably under 25. They had been buried simultaneously and intentionally, in a position that owed nothing to chance. Beside them lay a few funerary objects — flintFlintA hard, brittle siliceous rock, knapped by prehistoric people to produce blades, points and sharp tools.→ flakes and a bone arrowhead — but it was their posture that captured the attention of researchers and the public. Were they married? In love? Victims of the same accident or disease? Or was this a ritual sacrifice connected to the beliefs of the Neolithic community that buried them?

Reconstruction of a Neolithic village similar to that of Valdaro — The "Lovers of Valdaro" were discovered in 2007 during preventive excavations near Mantua. This Neolithic couple, embracing for 6,000 years, is now preserved at the Luigi Pigorini National Prehistoric and Ethnographic Museum in Rome.

The Lovers of Valdaro are today preserved at the Luigi Pigorini National Prehistoric and Ethnographic Museum in Rome, where they have been subjected to in-depth analysis. DNADNAThe molecule carrying genetic information, used to reconstruct kinship between species.→ study has not yet lifted the mystery of their exact relationship — they were not siblings, confirming this was not an ordinary family burialBurialThe intentional deposition of a body, sometimes with offerings; a marker of symbolic behaviour.→. This double burial, rare for the European Neolithic, illustrates the variety and complexity of the funerary practices of these farming communities six millennia ago.

The Lovers of Valdaro: 6,000 years entwined beneath the soil of Mantua

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