In the spring of 1995, the skeletal remains of the victims of the cholera epidemic of 1837 came to light in the Sicilian town of Alia during the restoration work on the wall that closed off the "Grotta del Cimitero Vecchio", here hastily buried. Since that moment, the Alia project has developed relentlessly, analyzing the biological evolution of the Alia population using the study methodologies typical of different anthropological disciplines such as skeletal biology, population genetics, biodemography. The volume accounts for the research conducted and in progress by scholars from the Universities of Florence, Palermo, Parma, Cagliari, Turin and Göttingen. |