Italy before the Neanderthals: Cultural pathways of early humans

Hominin dispersal into the Italian Peninsula is documented by a discontinuous record spanning the late Early Pleistocene to the early Middle Pleistocene, in which settlement remains spatially selective until the Middle Palaeolithic. The available evidence indicates two main occupation episodes that differ in archaeological visibility, stratigraphic resolution, and technological organization. The earliest occupations, between approximately 1.6 and 0.8 Ma, are represented by a small set of sites preserving Mode 1 industries dominated by expedient flake production on locally available raw materials. Pirro Nord (Pirro 13) links a technologically coherent flint assemblage with a rich vertebrate association and butchery traces within a karstic infill deposit, whereas Cà Belvedere di Monte Poggiolo provides an open-air context with in situ knapping and extensive refitting within littoral to alluvial sediments dated to the late Early Pleistocene. In both cases, reduction sequences are short and flexible, retouched tools are rare, and shaped components are absent or marginal, consistent with behavioral strategies oriented toward rapid production of functional cutting edges in open to heterogeneous environments. A second phase of increased archaeological visibility, between approximately 700 and 600 ka, is attested by Notarchirico and Loreto, within the volcanically influenced Venosa Basin, and Isernia La Pineta, within an intramontane fluvio-lacustrine setting, document increased archaeological resolution and more complex settlement palimpsests. These records show that early Middle Pleistocene technological variability cannot be reduced to the appearance of bifacial tools. Debitage remains the core of lithic production, while shaping is variably expressed and closely dependent on blank availability, raw material constraints, and functional needs, including contexts where organized reduction systems and intensive carcass exploitation occur with minimal Large Cutting Tool representation. Overall, the Italian record supports a model in which early occupations reflect low visibility, followed by a phase of recurrent land use in predictable resource zones during the early Middle Pleistocene, expressed through flexible Mode 2 systems rather than a unidirectional technological trajectory.