The human population of the southern slopes of the eastern Alps in the Wurm late glacial and early postglacial

Abstract

Discoveries of human settings of Late Glacial and early Postglacial age on the southern slopes of the Alps are relatively frequent. Some rockshelters on the valley-bottoms (Riparo Tagliente in the Valpantena in the Lessini mountains; Riparo Soman at the mouth of the Adige Valley and Ripari Villabruna in the Cismon Valley; Ripari di Romagnano, Pradestel and Vatte in the Trento basin) have Late Glacial and early Postglacial series which cover the chronological span between 13,500 and 6500 years B.P. (in terms of uncalibrated radiocarbon chronology). The sediments, soils, pollen associations, vegetal macroremains, micromammal and large mammal associations and birds from these series have all been studied, and many samples of charcoal have been dated using the radiocarbon method. It has thus been possible to construct a nearly uninterrupted chronological sequence of reference industries which cover the chronological span between the Older Dryas and the Atlantic, thus embracing the sequence of industries of the late Palaeolithic (recent Epigravettian) and Mesolithic (Sauveterrian and Castelnovian) up to the Neolithisation (early Neolithic, "Gruppo del Gaban"), and thereby allowing a chronological attribution to be given to many sites which otherwise are undatable and maps to be drawn of the distribution of the sites in the various phases (Older Dryas, Bolling/Allerad, end of the Late Glacial, Preboreal/Boreal, beginning of the Atlantic). The distribution of the sites in the various phases shows a progressive penetration into the Alpine environment and the construction, both in the Late Glacial and in the early Postglacial, of settlement systems which extended from the valley-bottoms up to the Alpine grasslands. The southern slopes of the Eastern Alps can therefore be considered as a sample-area for the study of the human settlement of the Prealpine and Alpine region after the definitive retreat of the Wurm glaciers.