Il Riparo di Biarzo 40 anni dopo

The Biarzo rock-shelter lies beneath a rocky cliff, along the left bank of the Natisone river (160 m a.s.l.), about 300 m north of the settlement of the same name, a hamlet of San Pietro al Natisone in the Province of Udine in NE Italy. Between 1982 and 1984, excavation campaigns were carried out under the direction of the University of Ferrara (A. Guerreschi) and the Natural History Museum of Udine (F. Bressan), which involved an area of about 4m2. The stratigraphy brought to light, consists of five anthropogenic layers about 2 metres thick. The oldest is represented by the SU 5, divided into three artificial cuts (5A, 5B and 5C), and culturally related to the recent Epigravettian (the final phase of the Upper Palaeolithic) (Tab. 1). The overlying levels, on the other hand, retain traces of frequentation attributable respectively to the ancient Mesolithic (SU 4, 3B, Sauveterrian) and the recent Mesolithic (SU 3A, Castelnovian). Within this final level there are fragments of Neolithic and Aeneolithic pottery, probably coming from the overlying layers. The upper level (SU 2) contains evidence of frequentation between the Late Neolithic and the Middle-Recent Bronze Age (SU 2). At the base, the sequence opens with a sterile silt-sandy layer containing pebbles (SU 6) and ends at the roof with a sterile silty gravel layer (SU 1).