Quando la selce scarseggia. Studio tecnologico e funzionale dell'industria litica della Ciota Ciara (Borgosesia, VC)

The Ciota Ciara cave is the only Middle Palaeolithic site of the Piedmontese and Lombard area where systematic and multidisciplinary researches took place in recent years. The cave opens at 670 m a.s.l. on the west side of the Fenera mount (Borgosesia, VC) and the relevance of its archaeological deposits are known since the middle of 1900. The excavations of the University of Ferrara started in 2009 and involved four main stratigraphic units (13, 14, 15 and 103). These new researches highlight that the Ciota Ciara cave was occupied several times during Middle Palaeolithic and that some of these frequentations were quite intense, as attested by the finding of a fireplace, in S.U. 14, by the increase in herbivorous remains, by the presence of cut marks on the faunal remains and by the huge lithic assemblage composed by tools made on local raw materials. The use of local vein quartz, collected at the base of the Fenera mount in the form of pebbles, is dominant in all the stratigraphic units for the production of the lithic tools. Beside quartz, spongolite, a local variety of chert, is extensively used and it was collected in the form of small slabs or decimetric blocks on the top of the mount. The knapping sequences are complete concerning these raw materials and the technological analysis of the lithic assemblage attests that the knapping activities were carried out in the site. Among the knapping methods, the most employed is the opportunistic/S.S.D.A. together with discoid and Levallois reduction sequences strongly adapted to the mechanical characteristics of the raw materials. Very interesting is the presence, in S.U. 14 and, to a lesser extent, in S.U. 15, of lithic tools whose edges were reshaped several times, realized with good quality raw materials and that were introduced in the site as finished tools. In accordance with the results of other studies, the use-wear analysis of the lithic assemblage of the Ciota Ciara cave confirms a change in the modalities of the site frequentation between S.U. 13 and S.U. 14, this last being characterized by a greater diversification of the activities carried out. S.U. 13 is the result of short and repeated frequentations, linked to butchering activities and to the production/ maintenance of the wood equipment, while in S.U. 14 new and more complex activities emerge, as skin processing, thus attesting longer periods of frequentations of the cave.