Strategies and Tools for Managing Change. What Lithic Artefacts Tell about Neandertals and First Anatomically Modern Humans in Liguria

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Liguria is an arch of land overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, with mountain areas, very rare coastal planes and steeply sloping valleys. In spite of this peculiar orography this region represented an important passageway between France and central-northern Italy, allowing the diffusion of human groups, ideas, artefacts and raw materials through ridge routes. The presence in this area of important sites chronologically referable to the late Middle Palaeolithic (Mousterian) and to the early Upper Palaeolithic (Proto-Aurignacian) allows us to investigate some cultural and economic dynamics that have characterized this long and complex historical phase. The geological characteristics of this territory and of the surrounding areas are moreover very specific, with a large variety of lithotypes concentrated in a large territories, thus allowing a privileged glimpse into the movements and use of the different raw materials. Based on data gathered we will try to reconstruct the dynamics about AMH spreading in the Mediterranean area, underlying how Liguria represents a key territory for a correct understanding of the behavioural and migratory processes that have characterized Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in Europe.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23846