Earliest Italy: An Overview of the Italian Paleolithic and Mesolithic

411 Pages·2002·14.508 MB·English

by  Margherita Mussi (auth.)

Earliest Italy
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Earliest Italy
An Overview of the Italian
Paleolithic and Mesolithic
Margherita Mussi
Università di Roma“La Sapienza”
Rome, Italy
KLUWER ACADEMIC/PLENUM PUBLISHERS
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eBookISBN: 0-306-47195-7
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For Silvio and Luisa Mussi,
my parents
Foreword
The richness of the Italian Paleolithic has never been doubted; neither has the
environmental diversity of a country that stretches from the Alps almost to Af-
rica. What instead has been lacking is a study that truly puts the richness and
the diversity together. Now we have,in this magnificent overview by Margherita
Mussi, the marriage of archaeological Paleolithic data with the detail of the pa-
leoenvironmental framework. Moreover, for the first time since Raymond
Vaufrey’s 1928book Le Paléolithique italien,the full sweep of the period is pre-
sented.The value of this book as a meticulous and comprehensive surveyof all
the pre-Neolithic archaeology of onecountry will establish its place in the Paleo-
lithic canon.
There will undoubtedly be some surprises for readers who have not closely
followed recent work in the Italian Paleolithic. The quality of the Lower Paleo-
lithic open sites excavated to the highest standards now provides one of the
best examples of early hominid land use anywhere in Europe. Italy’s Neander-
thals emerge as some of the most enigmatic-and clever-peoples, adapted to
terrains that defeated their northern contemporaries.Such resolute existence in
the changing circumstances of climate and resources stands as a marked con-
trast to the slender traces of the Earliest Upper Paleolithic throughout the
country. The Italian data confirm the view that if such blades and bone tools are
indicative of the arrival of anatomically modern humans, then an assumption of
immediate advantage is hard to sustain. Instead, and in line with the chrono-
logical overlap elsewhere in Europe between Neanderthals and Moderns, we
must finally abandon the simplistic concepts of progress and instead turn to a
fuller appreciation of society and environment for an explanation. This hiatus
emphasizes the Gravettian fluorescence that followed with art and status buri-
als. The evidence that Mussi draws together provides us with a systematic
insight into the complexities of interaction prior to the last glacial maximum.
Finally, Iapplaud her decision to break the Holocene boundary and end her
overview with the Mesolithic. If ever an international conference was needed to
vii
viii FOREWORD
bring Europe into line with the rest of global prehistoric studies by abolishing
the term Mesolithic, then this book points to the country where it should be
held.
Beyond these surprises, Mussi’s overview of the Italian Paleolithic adds to
the international project to explain rather than just describe the patterns in our
data.As fellow members of the coordinating committee of the European Science
Foundation’s network on the Paleolithic occupation of Europe,we were able to
piece together with other colleagues the long-term trajectories of change and
unravel the processes involved in colonization and adaptation. Many times in
our discussions, the Italian data served to remind us of the diverse skills and
competence of the earliest occupants of the continent.The case was compelling
for several reasons. Italy forms one of those rare natural units for the study of
small-scale mobile populations. The Alps,with or without ice sheets,provide a
barrier while to the east and west geographical bottlenecks occur.The sea rose
and fell but peninsula status was always maintained. Within Italy tectonic
events have produced, as Mussi describes,a set of finely differentiated mosaics
of topography, resources, and vegetation. Compared to the broad, flat sweep of
the mammoth-steppe to the north of the Alps, the ecological opportunities for
hominids in Italy were always very different. The scale is therefore right for
tracking and explaining successive solutions to climatic change and the affor-
dances of the landscape. It is also right for interregional comparison in what
Luis Raposo, another ESF network member, has identified as the three Mediter-
ranean peninsulas-Iberia, Italy,and Greece.The contrasted Paleolithic prehistories
in these three regions can in turn be contrasted with North Africa, the Levant,
and northern and central Europe. Here then lies the opportunity to finally dis-
pel the idea that ahomogenous Paleolithic world existed, one which was driven
solely by resources and efficient calorie intake.Instead, the picture both within
regions (such as Italy) and between them is one of diversity.While we must be
careful not to mimic the contemporary European call for “strength through di-
versity,” at the same time we see in works such as Mussi’s the importance of
detailed intraregional surveys. Only these can correct the misrepresentation of
Paleolithic society as simple and similar wherever common types of stone tools
were made.
It is appropriate that at the start of the millennium we have a book by Mar-
gherita Mussi that puts the Italian Paleolithic record firmly at center stage. No
longerwill it be possible to claim difficulties of language or the barrier of Lapla-
cian typology to incorporating this crucial evidence into our understanding of
the deep-time past. The timing, direction, and pattern of colonization of Italy im-
pinges on our wider understanding of these processes at a European and Asian
scale. The occupancy of the country remains a major avenue for future research.
Was it like the “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t’’ volcanic island of Isola Ferdinan-
deawhich cameandwent off Sicilyin 18311An ebband flowgoverned by cyclical
climatic effects?Or did hominids possess the skills and societies from 600,000
yearsagowhen the settlement evidence iswidespread to make this Mediterranean
country one of Europe’slong-term refugia?
FOREWORD ix
Such questions are the lifeblood of future Paleolithic work; in order to an-
swer them, we need firm foundations. In Margherita Mussi’soverview we have
both.
Preface
My colleagues and friendsknow how utterly fascinated I am by Italy, whether be-
cause it happens to be my country, or just because it is Italy,that little stretch of
land ofgreat contrasts and immenseculture.Not surprisingly,in the next chapters
myfocusisonItaly,an ever-changing stage onwhich the ebbsand flowsof prehis-
torichuman population are scrutinized.
Thisavowed bias, however,isnotwithoutanyscientific basis.The Italian pen-
insula is situated in an interesting geographical position, severed as it is from the
rest of Europebya major naturalbarrier,theAlps,while the sea comprises the rest
of its natural frontiers. This sense of seclusion is properly expressed in the lan-
guage: the countries of Europe and the rest of the world are either Oltremare,
‘‘overthe sea”or Oltralpe,“overthe Alps.”However,the seclusionis not a strict
one. Even ruling out journeys across the seas (which scarcely happened during
the periods in which I am interested), narrower or wider natural passages were
always open to population movements between the southernmost extensions of
the Alps and the shores of the Mediterranean.As a consequence,the Italian ter-
ritory is both well-defined in a geographical sense and continuously open to
communication. Of additional value are the sharp altitudinal gradient of most of
the territory (Italy is basically made up of high mountain ranges in the middle of
the Mediterranean) and the peculiar island environments of Sicily and Sardinia.
Examples of most types of natural environment that develop at middle latitudes
areavailablewithinshortdistances. Therefore, Italyisanideal case studyformany
topicsin the studyof human evolution.
However,I would not have started the project of attractingwider attention to
Italian prehistory without much encouragement from ‘‘overthe Alps” and ‘‘over
the sea.”Iwould first mention Olga Soffer, David W.Frayer,and F.C.Clark How-
ell. Ofer Bar-Yosef was, in himself, an example of how to link together the Old
World and the New World.The idea developed during the years following a joint
research project in Abruzzo with David Lubell, while climbing the mountains of
central Italy and endlessly discussing circum-Mediterranean problems. I started
writing this book when the Network of the European Scientific Foundation, “The
xi
xii PREFACE
Paleolithic Occupation of Europe,” was established and I became involved in an
ongoing capacity. While I cannot mention everybody who participated, I would
like to mention that the chairman was Gerard Bosinski and that my colleagues in
the Standing Committee were Catherine Farizy, Clive Gamble, Lars Larsson,
Nicholas Praslov, Luis Raposo,Manuel Santonja,and AlainTuffreau.The friendly
and stimulating atmosphere of the meetings will not be forgotten by the partici-
pants, thanks to a great extent to Wil Roebroeks, who was the Secretary of the
Network. His energyand enthusiasm never failed throughout theyears.Thisbook
would certainly have been differentwithout those exciting meetings.Later,on the
other side of the Atlantic,Jacques Cinq-Mars generously shared with me his vast
knowledge of Beringia and northern steppes, helping me to put the Mediterranean
environment into a wider Eurasian perspective.
I am also indebted to the colleagues who work at institutionscloser to me in
space(namely,inRome),both in archaeologyand in the environmental sciences.I
would mention countless discussionswith Anna Paola Anzidei, Antonia Arnoldus-
Huyzendveld,Lucia Caloi,Patrizia Gioia, Carlo Giraudi, Maria Rita Palombo,Dan-
iela Zampetti, and with Rita Melis, too, within easy reach in Sardinia,and who
introduced me to the complexenvironment of thatmost beautiful island.
To write a book in English was also an interesting challenge in itself.It is not
just a matter of vocabulary, grammar, and the like. The structure of English is
quite different from the sumptuous phrasing of my native tongues. English is
sharpand clear-cut, and any hidden doubt or inconsistency quickly becomes self-
evident. I enjoyed it. However, my manuscript had to go through much editing
and polishing, for which I amindebted to David Lube11fora preliminary draft and
to Angus Quinlan for a full-scale revision. At this point, I also mention L. R.
Owen’sDictionaryof Prehistoric ArchaeologyThe copypresented to me by Nico-
lasConard was aninvaluablegiftthat helped mewith the tables and chapters.
Some technicalities had to be solved, however. Alces alcesis called “elk”in
Europe and “moose” in North America,where “elk’’is the common name of Cer-
vuscanadensis,which is close,in turn, to Cervuselaphus,the European red deer.
I stuck to the European style but often quoted the scientific name to avoid misun-
derstanding. Equus hydruntinus, the little horse of the steppe environment, is
often mistakenly referred to as “wildass”in the literature. It is an equid, not an
asinid, and I call it “hydruntine horse” (Italian: cavalloidruntino)as opposed to
Equus caballus,the common horse. Lithicindustryis even more problematic: be-
causeof thewidespread use of the so-called “Laplacesystem”in the Italian record,
informationand counts of the débitageare often omitted. I also had to adapt this
typologicalmethod,translatingit,so to speak,intoa type list for a wider audience,
When making references to absolute dates, I chose to quote in full the radiocar-
bon dates, and to round the other ones, usually related to earlier periods and
much less precise. I consistently made use of uncalibrated radiocarbon dates,
quoted as “bp”,and a full discussion of BP/bp dates is provided in Chapter 7.In
the Bibliographic references, it will be noted that in Italian, as well as in French
titles, the use of capitalization is rather restricted when compared to the English
style.Furthermore, sometimes publishers are not mentioned. Thisiswhen I made
use of informal but widely circulated booklets (such as guides to scientific excur-