L'industria in calcare di Isernia La Pineta: approccio tecnologico all'interpretazione delle strategie produttive del primo popolamento europeo

The studies and the researches carried out in the last years on the Palaeolithic site of Isernia La Pineta have brought to consider in new way the activities realized by the human group that lived the basin of Isernia during the Middle Pleistocene offering an important key of interpretation of the behavioural strategies of the prehistoric man. For many years the study of the faunal and lithic assemblage, including almost a hundred human fossil remains, has allowed us to answer some important questions concerning the debate about the earliest evidence for human occupation of Europe. The discovery and sistematic archaeological excavation of many important sites in the European context like Atapuerca, Fuentenueva and Barranco Leon in Spain Vallonnet in French Ca belvedere of Montepoggiolo, Pirro Nord and the other many important site located in Italy have also started new discussions about some geographical, ecological and economic aspects of this earliest occupation .Therefore it is possible to talk of a long and indipendent cultural period that started more than one million years ago. In this cultural context it’s possible to include the archeological site of Isernia La Pineta. Isernia is situated in a strategical position in the middle of the basin between two rivers Sordo and Carpino. The paleolithic site of Isernia la Pineta is located near the town and has been discovered in nineteen seventy eight during the escavation for the costruction of national road Napoli Vasto. Three very rich archeosuface are recovered: the first archeosurface 3c covers the travertine deposit. This antropic level has overlaid by alluvial deposits with macrovegetable prints. Sequently the human group lived in this area and left traces of its activities. This deposit is archeosurface 3a, the richest in paleontological and paletnological remains and is dated, with differents radiometric methods, between six and seven hundred thousand years ago. This second archeological level is covered by colluvial sediments with many piroclastic materials. It follows a phase during which fluvial sediments and sands with piroclastic material, set up over this layer. At the same time the human group lives in this area leaving the archeosurface 3 S10. This third archeological level is covered by fluvial sediments. At the upper limit the sequence stratigrafy is an alternation of paleosoils and tuffs dated about fifty hundred thousand years ago. The analysis of the exploitation of the raw material has confirmed the presence on the site of two different lithotypes: flint and limestone; the lithological dichotomy is related to the functional dichotomy of the raw material that seems to have conditioned the activities of the human group in different areas of the site The limestone was very abundant in the procurement area near the site so that the human group lived in Isernia La Pineta has had the possibility to make a relationschip between the quality of lithology’s raw material and the artefact to obtain: preferred cobbles of medium size with oval-lenghtned shape. But they didn’t do an absolute qualitative chose because this chose was due to the need and available natural resources. Finally the presence of many cortical flakes, the presence of flakes with few negatifs on the dorsal face, the law quantity of flakes coming from for pebbles are elements essentially releted to opportunistic behaviour strategies. The information collected until today have permitted to obtain a precise knowledge of the environmental context and the territorial resources exploited by the human group showing an opportunistic capability to find the most advantageous behavioural solution for the necessities of subsistence.