Variability of lithic technical systems in the Sauveterrian of the Southern Po Plain.

The focus of this paper is represented by a set of lithic assemblages brought to light at five sites located along the Southern margin of the Po Plain - between the cities of Bologna and Piacenza - for which palaeoenvironmental studies seem to support an Early Holocene age. The sites analysed are all open-air: three are located in the province of Bologna (I.N.F.S., Casalecchio di Reno and Cava Due Portoni); another in the area of Parma (Collecchio) and the last one further west, in the province of Piacenza (Le Mose). Only at the latter, covering a total extent of around 20,000m2 and where 27 concentrations of lithic artefacts were identified, two radiometric dates are available (8250±50 BP, 7460-7130 cal BC and 9220±50 BP, 8560-8300 cal BC). Both the technological and typological analyses applied indicate that the assemblages analysed share several aspects - i.e. the same general volumetric principles and criteria of selection and modification of the blanks - but at the same time each of them is characterised by some peculiar features of the reduction sequences and the typology of retouched artefacts. Such variability can be attributed to several factors among which the use of different raw materials and the activities carried out at the sites but it could also be a consequence of the possible different chronology - within the early Holocene - of these assemblages, an aspect which cannot be better evaluated so far due to a lack of absolute dating for most sites