Osseous Retouchers from the Final Mousterian and Uluzzian Levels at the Fumane Cave (Verona, Italy): Preliminary Results

This contribution presents the results of a study carried out on a large sample of retouchers made from osseous materials found in the Uluzzian and Mousterian layers at Fumane Cave (Verona, northern Italy). This osseous industry has attracted the interest of many researchers in the last ecades, in order to reconstruct stepwise lithic reduction equences and site formation processes with th help of lithic technology and experimental references. The analysis of 148 pieces focused on inferring the criteria which lead th selection of the blanks, the use and discard in each separate stratigraphical unit. Middle Paleolithic groups, in general, used long bones from ungulates, mostly cervids, due to their similar morpholoigcal characteristics: straight, flat and thick