Detecting human presence at the border of the Northeastern Italian Pre-Alps. 14C dating at Rio Secco cave as expression of the first Gravettian and the late mousterian in the Northern Adriatic Region.

Sahra Talamo,Andrea Picin,Camille Jéquier,Andreas Pastoors,Marco Peresani,Nicola Nannini,Rossella Duches,Jean-Jacques Hublin,Gerd-Christian Weniger,Matteo Romandini,Manuel Vaquero

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0095376

Abstract

In the northern Adriatic regions, which include the Venetian region and the Dalmatian coast, late Neanderthal settlements are recorded in few sites and even more ephemeral are remains of the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic occupations. A contribution to reconstruct the human presence during this time range has been produced from a recently investigated cave, Rio Secco, located in the northern Adriatic region at the foot of the Carnic Pre-Alps. Chronometric data make Rio Secco a key site in the context of recording occupation by late Neanderthals and regarding the diffusion of the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic culture in a particular district at the border of the alpine region. As for the Gravettian, its diffusion in Italy is a subject of on-going research and the aim of this paper is to provide new information on the timing of this process in Italy. In the southern end of the Peninsula the first occupation dates to around 28,000 14C BP, whereas our results on Gravettian layer range from 29,390 to 28,995 14C years BP. At the present state of knowledge, the emergence of the Gravettian in eastern Italy is contemporaneous with several sites in Central Europe and the chronological dates support the hypothesis that the Swabian Gravettian probably dispersed from eastern Austria.

Highlights

Numerous sites throughout the Italian Peninsula and the western Balkans document key events between the late Middle Palaeolithic and the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic
Focusing on the northern Adriatic Sea rim which includes the Venetian region and the Dalmatian coast, the millennia preceding the demise of Neanderthals are recorded in very few sites which displayed data of variable relevance [1,2,3]
The results of AMS radiocarbon dating of 10 samples from Rio Secco Cave of layer (U.S.) 6 (Gravettian cultural sequence), layers (U.S.) 5 top and 7 (Mousterian cultural sequence). d13C values are reported relative to the vPDB standard and d15N values are reported relative to the AIR standard. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0095376.t001

Summary

Introduction

Numerous sites throughout the Italian Peninsula and the western Balkans document key events between the late Middle Palaeolithic and the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic. Flint provisioning and lithic economy was fully organized and reveal how human land-use varied to the geographical location and function of the sites [3]. Even scarcer in this area is the archaeological evidence of the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic, a period better known along the Tyrrhenian Sea and the southern Adriatic coasts, where evidence of intense Gravettian occupation can be found [4]. This paper will not enter into this broader issue, instead it will deal with the Northern Italian evidence and the role of two possible passageways, one from the west (France) and one from the east (Balkan region) [9,12,13,14]

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Discussion

Conclusion