Search

The mobility patterns in the Italian peninsula during prehistory are still relatively unknown. The excavation of the Copper Age and Bronze Age deposits in La Sassa cave (Sonnino, Italy) allowed to broaden the knowledge about some local and regional dynamics. We employed a multi-disciplinary approach, including stable (carbon and nitrogen – C and N, respectively) and radiogenic (strontium-Sr) isotopes analyses and the identification of the cultural traits in the material culture to identify mobility patterns that took place in the region. The Sr isotopic analyses on the human bones show that in the Copper Age and at the beginning of the Bronze Age, the cave was used as a burial place by different villages, perhaps spread in a radius of no more than 5 km. Stable isotopes analyses suggest the introduction of C4 plants in the diet of the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) communities in the area. Remarkably, in the same period, the material culture shows increasing influxes coming from the North. This evidence is consistent with the recent genomic findings tracing the arrival of people carrying a Steppe-related ancestry in Central Italy in MBA.

The paper aims at merging the first results from the analyses of the georesources exploited in the site of Piano dei Cardoni (Ustica island, Italy) during the Neolithic phases of its occupation (Middle-Late Neolithic, 4.7-4.2 ka cal BC). Grinding tools consist of a very varied typology of local volcanic rocks, easy to collect and available very close to the investigated site. A selection of shapes and lithology is applied to reach the best performance of the tools. The elevated number of grinders, pestles, mortars testify to an intense activity of food/plant processing in the site. The absence of chert or obsidian resources on the island pushed the human communities to import such raw materials from the Aeolian islands and probably from the north-western area of Palermo. Pumice is collected on the same island, probably due to the local availability and its good quality. Similarly, local clay resources are used for the manufacture of ceramics, mostly burnished and incised wares. Ustica was therefore almost autonomous for the exploitation of resources, with volcanic rocks readily available in abundance and with the most significant exception being chert and obsidian. This last one probably imported and worked on the island and then moved towards North-Western Sicily.