Lashed by the wind: short-term Middle Palaeolithic occupations within the loess-palaeosoil sequence at Monte Netto (Northern Italy)

Abstract

The final Middle Palaeolithic of northern Italy is almost exclusively known based on pluristratified sites in caves or rock shelter, which attest a certain technological variability within the Mousterian through the adoption of different knapping methods focused on the production of flakes or blades. The almost total lack of specialized and/or short-term open-air sites framed at this stage contributes to create a fragmentary and incomplete picture with regard to the last Neanderthal occupation of the area. For this reason, the Monte Netto site, an isolated hill at the northern margin of the Po Plain and at the foot of the Prealps, represents a key deposit to investigate this phase. Along the loess-palaeosoil sequence, investigated from a geochronological and pedological point of view, frequentations by Mousterian Neanderthal groups are attested at two different times, of which the most consistent is: associated to sediments dated to 44,400 ± 5.4 ky BP. The findings confirm the sporadic frequentation of marginal open areas during the cold, arid and highly fluctuating climate of the MIS 3, providing a more complete picture of the human occupation along the Po Plain Loess Basin (PPLB). An interregional comparison points out the clear intention, by the last Neanderthal groups of the Po Plain, of producing elongated supports by applying different methods, within a varied and organized system of resources exploitation evidenced by the selection of raw materials coming from more than 60 km.

The Po Plain Loess Basin (Northern Italy): Scientific Values, Threats, and Promotion Opportunities

“…Most of loess sequences in the Po Plain can be considered as complex pedostratigraphic sequences (Zerboni et al 2015), because they include wind-blown sediments and palaeosoils (related to interglacial periods) developed into loess. Hence, in this area both simple and complex pedosequences could be retrieved, including localities where loess levels are intercalated to paleosols, preserve evidence of past earthquakes, and entomb archaeological remains (Livio et al 2014;Cremaschi et al 2015;Delpiano et al 2019).…”

“…The list of these areas -often disregarded -includes the Upper Pleistocene Po Plain Loess Basin of Northern Italy (Amit and Zerboni, 2013;Zerboni et al 2018), where several loess/ paleosol outcrops display complex pedosequences formed under contrasting Pleistocene pedoclimatic settings, recording recent tectonic activity in the foreland of the Alpine and Apennine ranges, and preserving open-air Palaeolithic archaeological sites (e.g. Cremaschi 1990;2004;Ferraro 2009;Cremaschi et al 2015;Zerboni et al 2015;Frigerio et al 2017;Delpiano et al 2019).…”

Thinking Outside the Box at Open-Air Archeological Contexts: Examples From Loess Landscapes in Southeast Romania

“…The fresh surfaces of and lack of patina on the two lithics suggest that the artifacts were not fluvially transported but rather either discarded in situ (e.g., Delpiano et al, 2019), or transported only a very short distance. Given that flint cobbles up to 7 cm diameter are present in the basal gravels, it is possible that these provided the raw material for flake production, although flint outcrops are common in the karst gorge upstream.…”

“…The few sites with stratigraphy vary in assemblage size, depending on the site function. In the absence of ideal sites, an incremental approach which places human presence on the map (e.g., Delpiano et al, 2019) removes some uncertainty regarding human occupation at the gateway to Europe at this critical time.…”

“…One could argue that rather than confining themselves to a defined occupational area, people ranged over landscape scales, particularly where raw material for making stone tools was plentiful (e.g., Iovita et al, 2012). Such observations, while intuitive, are rarely supported by evidence (but see Zerboni et al, 2015;Delpiano et al, 2019, for a similar case in northern Italy). At DP, we may start to build a case for this hypothesis.…”