Una sepoltura privilegiata e una sepoltura anomala nel cimitero della Pieve di Pava in Val d’Asso (Siena)

The paper takes into account the two unusual burials emerging from the Pava archaeological complex. They are part of the vast cemetery where about 900 burials have been excavated dating from the fourth century AD, until twelfth. The most important phase is the one between tenth and twelfth, fewer for the time being the late antiquity and the early medieval ones. The information that emerges from this graveyard is very consistent with the reconstruction of the Asso Valley population and its evolution over the course of nine centuries. The first is in the 8th century, in a privileged position, in front of the altar. It is a "cassone" tomb containing the remains of an individual in secondary deposition. The anthropological study found age, sex, cause of death and illness that afflicted him (acromesomelic dysplasia); important acquisitions have also come from a first series of isotopic analyses conducted on bones and teeth. It was a young man who was struggling to deserve the most important position in the church. There are various readings to date, among which the identification with S. Marcellino cannot be ruled out, as the local hagiographic tradition recalls martyrized in the Vallesanta (a few miles from Pava), inside the medieval Pava parish catchment area. The second burial ground is dating between the tenth and twelfth century, it is the skeleton of a young woman placed in prone position. Bone position analysis has determined the intentionality of the choice. Even in this case the readings can be of course certain, it is a rite reserved for "particular dead", which in life or death were marked by a negative event such as the deaths of violent death that they might wish to avenge. Even the fear of certain "living" (epileptics, psychopaths, witches or sorcerers) was the driving force behind that choice.