The chalcolithic cemetery at Manerba del Garda

Abstract

The south-western shoreline of Lake Garda is for the most part low and shelving, but at Manerba an outcrop of triassic limestone forms a dramatic, high promontory projecting into the lake (FIG. 1 ). This geological formation is stepped in two levels : the higher, inland part, called the ‘Rocca’, occupied during the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman periods, as well as being the site of a medieval castle (Borrello, 1973 ; Brogiolo, 1973), and the lower level, the Sasso, comprising a sheer cliff dropping some 90 m down to the lake edge, with, at its foot, a chalcolithic cemetery, as well as traces of both earlier and later use by man.