cherubino

New publication assessing the stratigraphies of Mousterian sites in NW Tuscany

Buca della Iena, Grotta del Capriolo and Grotta del Cervo are three small sites in the hills next to the town of Viareggio (Tuscany, Italy). Buca della Iena and Grotta del Capriolo were investigated in the late 1960s, while Grotta del Cervo, despite being located next to Buca della Iena, was discovered and investigated much later during the early 1990s. The three sites represent some of the few stratified archaeological sites revealing Mousterian artefacts in Tuscany. The Mousterian is the material culture generally associated with Neanderthals, the indigenous European extinct hominin species that preceded Homo sapiens. Stratified sites are pivotal in Archaeology to discern spatial and chronological relationships. By establishing what lies above or beneath archaeologists can interpret what is younger and what is older, also by dating material associated with the artefacts we can obtain an absolute date for the artefacts and the human occupation. Stratigraphical contexts in the three sites are hindered by decades of lack of research, which meant the loss of information about excavation methods and therefore stratigraphical relationships of the artefacts. The article presents the effort to publish all resources still available and draw some new interpretations about how the artefacts might have been found at the sites. Thanks to this the artefacts can be investigated again and shed new light on Neanderthals behaviour in Tuscany and Italy.

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