Bulini e tradizioni tecniche nell’arco Mediterraneo nord-occidentale. Il caso delle industrie tardoneolitiche di Tosina di Monzambano (Mantova)

During the fifth millennium cal. BC, the coastal regions extending from north-western Italy to Catalonia (i.e. the north-western Mediterranean arc) are characterized by an increasing complexity in the material productions. Lithic assemblages testify the diffusion of technological innovations, the emergence of specialized craftworks, the exchange of raw-materials and finished goods over large territories, and the existence of technical transfers. Within this framework, one of the most interesting elements is represented by the Burins on blade. On the basis of several analysis carried out on the assemblages of both the Chassey Culture of Southern France and of the Cerny Culture of the Paris Basin, it seems that those tools were mainly used for working ligneous and non-ligneous plants. In the present work, Authors present the preliminary results obtained from the technological and traceological analysis of a sample of burins recovered from the Lagozza Culture levels of Tosina di Monzambano (Mantova). The site, a huge Neolithic settlement located south of the Garda Lake, has been recently excavated by the Soprintendenza Archeologia della Lombardia in collaboration with the SAGAS Department of the Università di Firenze and the Museo e Istituto Fiorentino di Preistoria. The study carried out on the Burins on blade shows a strong similarity between the Lagozza and the Chassey tools, from a morpho-typometric, technological and traceological point of view. The same type of blanks has been selected and the same type of functional strategies has been applied. At Tosina di Monzambano Burins are associated to craft process on vegetal substances, probably soft-woods or highly siliceous plants. In addition, the burin stroke it is occasionally used for edge resharpening and, possibly, for narrowing the edge in order to facilitate the insertion of the blank into some type of handle

The mesolithic occupation at Isolidda (San Vito Lo Capo), Sicily

‘Gruppo dell’Isolidda’ is a complex of five caves along a rocky cliff on the eastern side of the promontory of San Vito Lo Capo (Trapani) in NW Sicily. In 2004 archaeological excavations in the slope below the caves revealed a stratified deposit, partially in secondary position, containing levels with Late Epigravettian and Mesolithic stone tool assemblages. Early Mesolithic stone tool industries, characterized by backed microlithic tools, were distributed in two contiguous layers (SU 21 and SU 25), the lowest of which (SU 21) also contained Epigravettian tools, probably due to sediment reworking. Three AMS dates on Phorcus turbinatus shells (~9520-8990 cal. BP) are chronologically compatible with the Early Mesolithic materials and suggest that the bulk of the deposit accumulated then. A third level, lying above the previous ones, contained material culture associated to the Late Mesolithic or Early Neolithic. Faunal remains from the site represent mainly food refuse and included abundant shells of intertidal molluscs (e.g. Phorcus turbinatus and Patella sp.), along with few fragmented bones of terrestrial herbivores (e.g. Cervus elaphus and Sus scrofa). Oxygen isotope analyses on shell carbonates of Phorcus turbinatus show that, around 9520-9000 cal. BP, marine molluscs were exploited year-round, albeit more often in autumn and winter

The ‘Hidden Foods’ project: new research into the role of plant foods in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic societies of South-east Europe and Italy

The ‘Hidden Foods’ project is a new research programme aimed at reconstructing the importance of plant foods in prehistoric forager subsistence in Southern Europe, with a particular focus on Italy and the Balkans. The role of plant foods in pre-agrarian societies remains one of the major issues of world prehistory. Popular narratives still envisage ancient foragers as primarily ‘meat-eaters’, mainly as a consequence of the poor preservation of plant remains in early prehistoric contexts, and due to the employment of methods particularly focused on the contribution of animal protein to human diet (e.g. isotope analysis) (e.g. Bocherens 2009; Jones 2009; Richards 2009). Recently, new methods applied to archaeological evidence have provided a different understanding of hunter-gatherer dietary preference and interaction with the environment. Harvesting and processing might not have been the sole prerogative of agricultural societies, and plant foods seem to have played an important role amongst hunter-gatherers (e.g. Revedin et al. 2010

Dating human occupation and adaptation in the southern European last glacial refuge : The chronostratigraphy of Grotta del Romito (Italy)

Grotta del Romito has been the subject of numerous archaeological, chronological and palaeoenvironmental investigations for more than a decade. During the Upper Palaeolithic period the site contains evidence of human occupation through the Gravettian and Epigravettian periods, multiple human burials, changes in the pattern of human occupation, and faunal, isotopic and sedimentological evidence for local environmental change. In spite of this rich record, the chronological control is insufficient to resolve shifts in subsistence and mobility patterns at sufficiently high resolution to match the abrupt climate fluctuations at this time. To resolve this we present new radiocarbon and tephrostratigraphic dates in combination with existing radiocarbon dates, and develop a Bayesian age model framework for the site. This improved chronology reveals that local environmental conditions reflect abrupt and long-term changes in climate, and that these also directly influence changing patterns of human occupation of the site. In particular, we show that the environmental record for the site, based on small mammal habitat preferences, is chronologically in phase with the main changes in climate and environment seen in key regional archives from Italy and Greenland. We also calculate the timing of the transitions between different cultural phases and their spans. We also show that the intensification in occupation of the site is chronologically coincident with a rapid rise in Mesic Woody taxa seen in key regional pollen records and is associated with the Late Epigravettian occupation of the site. This change in the record of Grotta del Romito is also closely associated stratigraphically with a new tephra (the ROM-D30 tephra), which may act as a critical marker in environmental records of the region