Detecting Transitions: Cultural and Environmental Changes Preserved in Archaeological Sediments from Western 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.

The reconstruction of Pleistocene human peopling along the Tyrrhenian coastline of Liguria is of critical importance. This region has yielded among the most recent evidence of Neanderthal occupation and the most ancient traces of modern humans in southern Europe. The reconstruction of the subsistence strategies of Pleistocene hunter-gatherer groups and the climatic conditions of the landscape they settled in is also very challenging. A geoarchaeological approach can help investigate the latter questions. In fact, anthropogenic sediments in rock shelters distributed along the extant coastline of western Liguria offer the opportunity to detect environmental changes and identify functional areas, possibly related to cultural transitions. In this contribution, we discuss preliminary results of a micromorphological investigation on sediments from two key sites of the region: the Bombrini rock shelter (Ventimiglia) and the Via S. Francesco open-air site (Sanremo). At Bombrini rock shelter, sediments preserve evidence of different degrees of weathering, with the older being more weathered than the upper ones. This suggests a progressive transition towards more cold conditions. At Via S. Francesco an analogue transition is also evident along with a main change in sediments supply, from sand dune to loess, thus suggesting a progressive decrease of the sea level.

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): 24286