In the Ticino Park, near Golasecca in the province of Varese, lies a wooded area dominated by chestnut and dense oak forests. It can be reached via an uneven, sometimes wild path, evoking the distant era of the first human settlements. Between the 9th and 6th centuries BC, several communities, bound by a shared cultural identity, chose this place as a burial site, now known as the Golasecca necropolis of Monsorino.
Golasecca culture
The Golasecca culture developed from populations of the late Bronze Age, linked to the Canegrate and Protogolasecca cultures, already settled in the Lombardy area. Thus, it was a gradual evolution, most likely influenced by contact with peoples from beyond the Alps. During the Iron Age, Celtic populations slowly and steadily migrated towards Italy. In particular, the Golasecca settlements occupied a very favourable geo-climatic position, near the Ticino River and Lake Maggiore. Therefore, they formed a fundamental bridge between the Italian peninsula and rest of Europe. The numerous artefacts found by archaeologists, including Greek and Etruscan vases, bear witness to flourishing trade, as evidenced by the wealth of grave goods found at the Ca’ Morta necropolis in Como.
The settlements
From the 6th century BC onwards, complex settlements began to develop, although little evidence of them remains today. The building materials used by the Golasecca people, especially for housing, were subject to deterioration. As a result, we cannot fully identify their characteristics today. Archaeologists hypothesise that the houses were built using wooden poles, first driven into the ground and then, from the 7th century BC, supported by circular dry stone foundations. The walls were probably covered with a thick weave of branches and clay. The roofs were made of layers of straw and bark.
The Golasecca necropolis of Monsorino
Our knowledge of the Golasecca culture comes almost entirely from the study of its burial with stone enclosures. They could contain single or multiple interments. In the Golasecca necropolis of Monsorino we can identify five funerary monuments. Three of them are circular in shape and two rectangular. These burials are characterised by the presence of distinctive stone alignments, which served as markers, improperly called “cromlechs” as they resemble similar Celtic megalithic constructions, although they differ from them in form and function. Moreover, between the 5th and 4th centuries BC, the Golasecca culture shows La Tène influences, following cultural contacts with the Cisalpine Gauls.
The first scholar to associate the necropolis with the Golasecca culture was Pompeo Castelfranco at the end of the 19th century1. Since then, the burials have been the subject of numerous studies. These have made it possible to determine the customs and cults linked with this particular archaeological facies.
The rite of incineration
The prevailing funeral practice was cremation. The body of the deceased, adorned with ritual clothing, was cremated on a pyre. The ceremony could take place inside the tomb itself or in sacred areas of the necropolis set aside for this purpose, a practice called ustrine. The bones were then cleaned of ashes and charcoal. Once collected, they were placed in biconical, situla, or olla urns, closed with inverted bowls, during the ritual phase of ossilegium.
The funerary goods of Golasecca necropolis
Archaeologists found some of the deceased’s grave goods inside the urn. These were small, unburned bronze objects, usually jewellery such as rings, pendants and brooches. The Golasecca people broke or deformed them to mark the deceased’s departure from the world of the living and to accompany them on their journey to the afterlife.
Another part of the grave goods (weapons, tools, even chariots) accompanied the urn inside the burial chamber, in stone cists. The presence of the deceased’s personal belongings served to ensure the continuation of the activities he had carried out in life in the afterlife, allowing him to continue to exist after death. The ceramics of the Monsorino necropolis include vases, bowls, and a characteristic globular-bodied cup, typical of these burials
Samuele Corrente Naso
Notes and Bibliography
- Pompeo Castelfranco, Paleontologia Lombarda. Escursioni e ricerche durante l’autunno del 1875, in Atti della Società Italiana di Scienze Naturali, XVIII, IV, 1876; Due periodi della prima età del ferro nella necropoli di Golasecca, in Bull. Paletn. Ital., II, 1876. ↩︎
P. Laviosa-Zambotti, Le origini della civiltà di Golasecca, in St. Etr., IX, 1935.
P. Laviosa-Zambotti, Civiltà palafitticola lombarda e Civiltà di Golasecca, in Riv. Archeol. dell’Ant. Prov. e Diocesi di Como, XVII, 1939.
M. Squarzanti (ed.), Studi sulla cultura di Golasecca, vol. 2, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2017.
B. Grassi, C. Mangani, Nel bosco degli antenati. La necropoli del Monsorino di Golasecca (scavi 1985‑86), All’Insegna del Giglio, Firenze, 2016.
