The hunting of large mammals in the upper palaeolithic of southern Italy:A diachronic case study from Grotta del Romito

摘要

The results of the study of faunal remains from the Upper Pleistocene levels of the cave site of Grotta del Romito in Calabria, southern Italy, are presented in this work. The present study mainly focuses on the comparison of results from Gravettian (units I-H-G) and Epigravettian levels (units F-E-D-C) of the site, in order to assess similarities and differences in the relationship between animals and hunter-gatherer human communities in the Upper Palaeolithic of the area. The aim of the study is to understand faunal associations and species hunted in relation to the climatic and environmental context of the Late Glacial in southern Italy and the human subsistence, economy and society in these two Upper Palaeolithic cultural phases. The study highlighted an animal economy mainly based on the hunting of ibex, wild boar, chamois and red deer, as well as changes in the choice of hunted species between the Gravettian, characterised by a ibex-dominated hunting, and the Epigravettian period, when wild boar, alongside ibex, became a particularly important resource for the economy of the local human groups. The evidence provided by the taphonomic analysis of modifications and damage on the bone surface revealed an intense anthropic exploitation of the carcasses, aimed at the consumption of meat and the extraction of marrow and fat from the bones.