Projectile points vs tools for dental treatment? From the impact fracture analysis to a new perspective of research: the case of Riparo Villabruna (Belluno – Italy)

Riparo Villabruna (Sovramonte – Belluno – Italy) is a small shelter with Final Epigravettian lithic industry at 500m asl, located in the Dolomites of Veneto region and excavated in the 1988-89. The archaeological site is famous for the discovering of a burial, found during roadworks. The buried individual was an adult male of 25 years old and 170cm tall, recognized as a hunter-gatherer for the presence of funerary goods (a bone point, a backed knife, a flint blade and a core, a siltstone pebble and a lump of unidentified material). Direct radiocarbon dates in addition to dated charcoals found in the burial pit place the burial in the interval 14,400 – 13,800 cal yr BP. The dentition of this individual also documents the earliest evidence of dental caries intervention on a Late Upper Paleolithic modern human specimen. Using SEM, striations were observed that were interpreted as deriving from the manipulation of a large occlusal carious cavity of the lower right third molar, which also was confirmed experimentally. Those striations appear to have been produced ante-mortem with pointed flint tools during scratching and levering activities. The results will be presented of a macro-fracture analysis that has been performed on part of the assemblage focused on an evaluation of the presence of impact-related fractures and the potential presence of projectile points in order to understand the function of the archaeological site. Some backed points proved to show a differing wear pattern and it was questioned whether these traces could correspond to dental caries intervention. In order to test this hypothesis, experiments were performed in combination with use-wear analysis to evaluate whether the observed damage patterns could indeed be caused by scratching enamel and dentine in view of dental treatment.