Le materie prime

Abstract The chapter introduces issues regarding the subject of this research. To the description of the geographical framework of the area under study, there follows the presentation of the climate and vegetation of the Alpine area during the Quaternary, as well as the chronological and cultural setting of the prehistoric periods under consideration: Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic. The Mont Fallère area, where the research was conducted, is located in the heart of the north-western Alps. In general, the Quaternary recorded numerous climatic oscillations which are detectable by studying the proxies stored in terrestrial and marine stratigraphic successions, which provide tools for the reconstruction of the history of the climate and its eff ects on plant and animal communities over the geological periods. Among the existing proxy records, the palaeoecological one is a fundamental archive of the history of climate and of the landscape at local, non-local and regional levels. Numerous palaeoecological records, supported by 14C dating, are available for northern Italy and document environmental changes that occurred starting from the fi nal phases of the last glaciation, which can be regarded as resulting from natural climate variability and human pressure. Beginning with the treeless steppes at the start of the Late Glacial, an articulated sequence of migrations and expansions, extinctions and introductions of new plant species, have led to the strongly anthropized environments of the historical period. From a chronological and cultural perspective, the archaeological remains that testify to the Mesolithic population in the north-western Alps are distributed unevenly: from areas with a large number of sites, there are others which preserve few archaeological remains. In detail, at the beginning of the Holocene, there are multiple archaeological sites discovered in Switzerland, especially on the margins of the alpine massif, just like in the Savoy Prealps where a precocious ancient Mesolithic can be found, while in the second half of the Boreal, the region is part of the Sauveterrian cultural current. In north-western Italy, research has revealed the presence of high altitude sites: near the Splügen Pass on the border with Switzerland, during the Preboreal; at Dosso Gavia in upper Valtellina, at Cianciavero in the Alpe Veglia basin and at Mont Fallère in Valle d’Aosta, over the fi rst part of the Holocene. From the early centuries of the eighth millennium BP, the north-western sector of the Alps plays an active part in the progressive spread of lithic technology orientated towards the production of regular and standardized blades/bladelets, which characterize the recent Mesolithic. As found in the Mesolithic period, even in the Neolithic the north-western Alps are characterized by a marked heterogeneity of data. The most important gaps in documentation include the Alpine regions of the western sector, excluding the canton of Valais: the inner massifs and valleys of the French and Italian Alps are mostly unknown from the point of view of their population. The neolithization of the French Pre-Alps, of Northern Italy and of the upper Rhone basin (Valais) is expressed in the cultural complex of the Impressed Ware that characterizes the early Neolithic of the Western Mediterranean. In the Middle Neolithic, relations between the two sides of the Alps are well documented. In particular, in the MN I (Italian Middle Neolithic) Ligurian and Po valley infl uences occur, albeit in moderate amounts, in the Rhone basin and in Provence, while during MN II (Italian Late Neolithic) an inversion in the trend and a certain “cultural” complexity can be observed: in the last quarter of the V millennium cal. B.C., a Chasséen presence is attested in Liguria and Piedmont, which tends to spread slowly towards northern Italy. These transalpine contacts are also highlighted by the presence of characteristic burials called Chamblandes, found in a geographical area corresponding to the north-western sector of the Alps (Valle d’Aosta, Tarentaise, upper basin of the French Rhone, Plateau Suisse) between the fi rst half of the V millennium cal. B.C. and the beginning of the IV millennium cal. B.C. The Chalcolithic (IV millennium cal. B.C. - III millennium cal. B.C.) is characterized by a material culture that refl ects the existence of cultural movements and far-reaching exchanges. During this phase (corresponding to the French and Swiss late Neolithic), the Alps do not seem to have been a barrier to human movement. On a strictly ideological level, attested ritual and funerary practices testify to the presence of common ideas and show a renewed concept of the living world which is expressed through the raising of anthropomorphic stelae and the construction of collective burials. The distinction between individuals (males) observed in the presence of weapons (as grave goods or as representations) is another common trait: the copper or fl int daggers placed in the individual graves at Remedello and Spilamberto; the representations of weapons engraved on the stele and generally present in rock engravings; a large number of derivative or imitated daggers in the settlement sites along the shores of the transalpine lakes and in the collective burials of the Rhone basin. Moreover, from a purely Alpine perspective, a clear relationship between the regions is recognized due to their architectural, iconographic and ritual convergence, also highlighted by the extraordinary similarity between the megalithic area of Aosta and the site of Petit-Chasseur in Sion, in the canton of Valais, and by the grave goods found in three burials discovered in Fontaine-le-Puits in Tarentaise, where a clear infl uence of Remedello has been shown extending all the way up to the Savoy Alpine territories.