Grotta del Clusantin, un sito inusuale nel sistema insediativo epigravettiano delle Alpi italiane.

Grotta del Clusantin opens at 520m asl on the Pradis plateau (north-eastern Italy), a karst table surrounded by mountains peaking at 1,200-1,400m asl and dissected by the Cosa stream gorge. In 2005, an Epigravettian level dated by 14C to 14ka Cal BP was extensively excavated at the cave entrance, which is the area best suited for human settlement in this low-ceiling cavity. The lithic industry includes 1,854 implements. Flaking was mostly aimed to bladelet production. Cores were made on flakes, small pebbles and blocks, and intensively exploited before being discarded, or re-cycled as splintered tools. The cave was used by huntergatherers for the exploitation of marmots in an open wood environment. Hunting and related short-term tasks were performed, as evidenced by the unbalanced rate between armatures, totalling 320 (backed points, backed bladelets, backed and truncated bladelets and a few geometric microliths), and common tools, which are 62 all together (mostly end-scrapers and splintered pieces).This interpretation of the lithic assemblage is confirmed by the large amount of waste products, and by the many Krukowski microburins and fragmented backed pieces, discarded during the production of new backed tools, or during the maintenance and repair of hunting gear. Mammals are almost exclusively represented by Marmota marmota (MNI = 17), while ungulates are found in small numbers (Capra ibex, Rupicapra rupicapra, Cervus elaphus, Sus scrofa, Alces alces), just as a few carnivores (Mustela erminia and Canis lupus). Bones are extensively fragmented, due to human activity, such as deliberate breakage and combustion, rather than to postdepositional processes. Among marmot bones, there are no vertebras, and just a few fragmentary ribs, scapulas and clavicles. Molars and incisors outnumber any other anatomical element, but phalanxes, metacarpals and metatarsals are reasonably well preserved. Second and third phalanxes, however, are underrepresented, and we suggest that most were lost during skinning and fur retrieval. A number of defleshing scars were observed on a left jaw and on a clavicle. Dismembering is often associated to the combustion of upper and lower limbs. Marmot bones, whether artificially modified or not, cluster in part of the excavated area: they are found mostly beyond the present-day drop line, surrounding a boulder which crops out of the living floor, and in a small area some 30cm away from it. The distribution pattern of the lithic industry, and specifically of the backed pieces and of the related waste products, as well as a few refitted fragments, are in good correspondence with the clusters of marmot bones. Grotta del Clusantin records one of the earliest Epigravettian occupations of the Eastern Italian Alps during the Lateglacial interstadial, as evidenced by palaeoecological and chronological data. Specialized hunting and processing of Marmota marmota to retrieve food, fur and grease, was the main activity carried on by a small group of hunters, at a site seasonally occupied between July and October.