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A collection of polished stone axes from a late Neolithic site and an Early Bronze Age hill fort in South Tyrol (Italy) have been analysed through a multi-analytical approach, mainly based on non-destructive techniques (i.e. Raman spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence and prompt gamma activation analysis) to identify the raw materials used in the same area during different periods and compare them with those in use in the surrounding territories. The analytical results suggest raw material exploitation strategies based on local or close sedimentary, metamorphic and magmatic rocks. Most of the artefacts are made from antigoritic serpentinite, whose origin is probably from Hohe Tauern (Austria) or related secondary deposits. These data confirm the importance of such raw material for the production of polished stone axes during recent prehistory and integrate the present knowledge about the distribution of antigoritic artefacts in north-eastern Italy and neighbouring countries.

The results of a long-term project on the stone axes from Caput Adriae show that jade axes originating in the western Alps reached the Neolithic groups of Friuli Venezia Giulia and coastal Istria as early as the second half of the 6th millennium BC, during the Danilo/Vlaška culture. The exchange of this and other classes of lithic artefacts testifies that in this period this area was fully integrated into long-distance exchange systems that used mainly coastal routes. These systems would have continued in the 5th millennium BC, as indicated by a few oversized jade axe blades and other materials. Far from the coast, jade axes entered central Slovenia, probably reaching sites of the Sava Group of the Lengyel culture in the first half of the 5th millennium BC. In roughly the same period, shafthole axes made of Bohemian metabasites spread over central and south eastern Europe, crossed the Alps and reached Italy. According to different Neolithic traditions, during the 5th millennium BC Europe appears to be divided into a jade-using western area and a central-eastern BM-using one.

The report “Greenstone” shaft-hole axes of NE Italy, Slovenia, Croatia: a new research project presented at the 39th IIPP Scientific Conference dedicated to raw materials and exchanges in Italian prehistory, held in Firenze in 2004, reviewed the situation of the studies on this class of artefacts and presented an agenda for the future. Since then an interdisciplinary team has worked mainly on the following research lines: archaeometric analyses of artefacts – shaft-hole axes and axe blades, for programmatic reasons – found in different sites of Caput Adriae, field surveys, sampling and analyses of geological formations, planned to identify the origin of the different raw materials used to make tools different in typology and, presumably, chronology. This goal has been achieved and the significant increase in data has been used to try to reconstruct the connections and the mechanisms of exchange active from the Neolithic to the beginning of the Bronze Age. The results of the long-term project are synthesized in this paper, which also evaluates their impact on the broader cultural panorama of late prehistory.

The 2.1-1.6ka B. C. period was dominated by oscilating low temperature, although ended by the warm 17c. B. C.. The coolness facilitated the dynastic restorations in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the terminal amerioration renewing their intermediate disunities of which severity was reduced by date palm and newly introduced sorghum (both irrigated). The African millet, supplying ovine summer green fodder originally absent in the ancient agriculture, contributed to the Babylonian wool industry revolution. Early coastal mediterranean farms ran unsteadily sporadically striken by serious soil diseases prevalent on the way of microbiotic succession toward artificial grassland flora. All over the circumediterranean areas bronze tools came into use except in the far north and south fringes. In northern Iran, North Asia and Central Asia the deterioration caused general stagnation. The northern steppe of the last area discharged unproportional number of immigrants, whose eastern group established the ancient civilization ruling the Chinese Neolithic natives. The survived Indus cities, after the hypothermal revitalization, began the final hypsithermal decline since the end of this period. East Asian southward immigrants brought the higher neolithic technologies into Southeast Asia. Taiwanese neolithic settlers emigrated to the uninhabited Micronesian islands via the tropical farwestern Pacific route in the semiglacial century. Early preclassic sites were formed in nuclear Americas. Three themes are discussed. Internal water supplied (i) the most important life sites in close woodlands, (ii) drift woods, the main ligneous resource of early peoples, (iii) urban consumables, especially staple by burge transport and (iv) irrigation water only in a few civilizations. Farms and isolated homesteads were the basic elements of the premodern landscape. Primeval woods were not felled by polished stone axes., Article, 人文科学論集. 人間情報学科編 39: 137-160 (2005)

Con este estudio queremos dar a co­nocer un hallazgo arqueológico, aparecido hace ya unos años, pero que permanecía inédito. Se trata de un hacha pulimentada pro­cedente de la localidad de Dombellas (Soria), y que se puede encuadrar cronológicamente en el Eneolítico-Bronce.This In this work we present an ar­chaeological find discovered many years ago but still not properly documented. This piece is a polished stone axe found in Dombellas (So­ria), that can be dated on the Eneolithic of the Bronze Age.

Con este estudio queremos dar a conocer un hallazgo arqueológico aparecido hace ya bastantes años, pero que aún permanecía inédito. Sólo una pequeña nota publicada por F. Morales en la Carta Arqueológica de Soria “La Altiplanicie Soriana” era toda la referencia que se tenía sobre la pieza. Se trata de un hacha pulimentada procedente de la localidad de Cortos (Soria), a pie de la Sierra del Almuerzo, y que se puede encuadrar cronológicamente en el Eneolítico-Bronce.In this work we present an archaeological find discovered many years ago but still not properly documented. The only reference to this piece comes from a short note published by F. Morales in the book “Carta Arqueológica de Soria: La Altiplanicie Soriana”. This piece is a polished stone axe found in Cortos (Soria), under Sierra del Almuerzo, that can be dated on the Eneolithic of the Bronze Age.

Eight polished stone axes, found at the archaeological site of Spaha, have been analysed using different analytical methods in order to characterize the artefacts and define their most probable provenance. The small Spaha collection testifies to connections with the Balkans and the Danubian area. Raw materials coming from Italy or Eastern Alps, which are known in the archaeological sites of the Ljubljansko barje, are here completely absent. This difference can be partially explained by the geographical position of the site at the Southern part of nowadays Slovenia.