Fifty thousand years of flint knapping and tool shaping across the Mousterian and Uluzzian sequence of Fumane cave

Grotta di Fumane, a Mousterian site in northern Italy, has been extensively explored over the last two decades in order to gather data on Neanderthal behaviour from during the Late Pleistocene up to the appearance of Modern Humans. The 12 m thick sedimentary sequence includes several layers that have yielded variable amounts of flint artefacts and faunal remains, particularly in BR11, A11, A8-A9 and A5-A6, related to repeated and complex human occupations. The earliest assemblages record the exclusive use of the Levallois method from S9 to BR7 for the production of flakes with unidirectional and centripetal recurrent modalities. In BR9, bifaces and different types of cores have also been found. The first striking technological replacement occurs in BR6, up to BR3, where there is a complex of layers with the infrequent occurrence of bones, flakes and scrapers, made with a method closely resembling the Quina technique. Further evidence of variability in lithic technology is provided by the re-appearance of the Levallois technology during MIS3, in layer A11 - although here focused more on blades than flakes - and by the Levallois/Discoid alternance throughout the transect from A10V to A5-A6. The persistence of the Mousterian tradition in the lowermost A4 Uluzzian level continues to be evidenced by Levallois flakes and cores, side-scrapers, points and thinned implements. The presence of conjoined flakes and cores proves that innovations occurred in A4 and A3 and, with the disappearance of the Levallois technology in A3, other methods focused on different kinds of flakes, short thick blades, thin bladelets and flake-bladelets.Even though most of this evidence is similar to that of other Levallois sequences in the Mediterranean rim, some, such as the bifaces and the Quina assemblages, provides us with new details of the cultural scenario. The former are ascribable to the vast spread of bifacial industries from North-west France to Central and Eastern Europe in MIS4 and early MIS3, whereas the latter can be linked to the dissemination of Quina in Southeast France. The perspectives adopted for assessing the significance of the A units are broadly borne out in the other late Mousterian industries, where the replacement of Levallois techniques by discoid technologies is recorded, independently of geographical and palaeo-environmental context and site function. Striking innovations in lithic technology occurring at the top of the sequence record the appearance of the Uluzzian in Southern Italy and the Balkans. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA.