Epigravettian processes and economic strategies in North-East Italy: The case of the Biarzo shelter (UD).

The former Epigravettian occupations in the Friuli Venezia-Giulia are evident since the beginning of the Alleröd Interstadial in some keys sites located between the valley bottom (Natisone valleys-Julian Prealps) and the karst plateaus of Piancavallo and Pradis. In the Clusantin cave (Clauzetto-PN), in the Carnic Prealps at 520 a.s.l., evidences of human presence at 14ka Cal 14C BP have been discovered. The abundance of lithic industry and marmots remains bearing butchery marks suggests a specialized hunting and processing of this small game. This is an exceptional unicum in Italy, and it can be compared only to the evidences discovered in the Vercors Massif (France) and in the Swiss Alps of the Jura. The anthropic evidences coming from the Grotte Verdi, in the Pradis plateau at 650 a.s.l., allow to confirm the existence of contacts with the nearest territories, putting the Pradis Plateau as one of the hunting basin of the Prealps during the second part of the Late Glacial Interstadial, and subsequently when the Epigravettian groups colonized the Cansiglio and Piancavallo plateaus. Biarzo shelter is located at the base of an alluvial terrace on the left side of the Natisone river at 160 m a.s.l. in eastern Friuli. The deposit excavated from 1982 to 1984 by Prof. A. Guerreschi contains several anthropic levels dated to the final Epigravettian, the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. Our contribution presents the results of the study carried out on the faunal remains recovered in the single epigravettian layer, dated 11.100 ± 125 uncal B.P. The predominance of wild boar among the ungulates is a particular feature with reference to the epigravettian sites of Northeastern Italy. Traces of anthropic actions have been identified on the most ungulates bones, whereas among the carnivores only a few bear bones show cutmarks. The high number of wild boar teeth at various eruption stages suggests that site occupation occurred from the beginning of autumn to the end of spring