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Neanderthal Lifeways, Subsistence and Technology pp 249–259Cite as

The End of the Middle Paleolithic in the Italian Alps

An Overview of Neanderthal Land Use, Subsistence and Technology

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Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series ((VERT))

Abstract

The Italian Alps were a familiar region for the last Neanderthals. Evidence from several sheltered and open-air sites prove that these humans exploited mineral and animal resources, and that these ways of organizing economic activity were deeply rooted in their social systems since early times. Human occupation spans from lowland to highland in the fringe between the Alps and the plain, a belt where the geographic and ecological contexts differ at a very small scale. Chronometric, ecological, economic and cultural evidence reveal how archaic humans adapted to climatic shifts, used different sites for different targets, and above all improved and refined lithic technology at the very end of their existence.

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Remark

In these last years since the Bonn meeting research has provided new relevant data on paleoecology, radiocarbon dating and human behavior across the MP-UP boundary. These data lead to a refinement of the current state of art about the climate forcing on vegetation from new pollen records, of the chronometric reference and of the replacements in lithic technology across the sequence of Grotta Fumane (Peresani 2008; Higham et al. 2009; Pini et al. 2009; Pini, in press).

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  1. Dipartimento di Biologia ed Evoluzione, Università di Ferrara, Corso Ercole I d’Este, 32, 44100, Ferrara, Italy

    Marco Peresani

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  1. Marco Peresani
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Correspondence to Marco Peresani .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte und Archäologie des Mittelalters Abteilung Ältere Urgeschichte und Quartärökologie, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Schloss Hohentübingen, 72070, Tübingen, Germany

    Nicholas J. Conard

  2. Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Universität zu Köln, Weyertal 125, 50923, Köln, Germany

    Jürgen Richter

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Peresani, M. (2011). The End of the Middle Paleolithic in the Italian Alps. In: Conard, N.J., Richter, J. (eds) Neanderthal Lifeways, Subsistence and Technology. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0415-2_21

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