Riparo Bombrini
| Riparo Bombrini
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 Riparo Bombrini (2019) |
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| Location: | At Ventimiglia , Imperia Province , Liguria Region , Italy | |
| Height : | 10 m slm | |
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Geographic location: |
43 ° 47 '1.8 " N , 7 ° 32' 6.3" E | |
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| Geology: | Dolomitic limestone | |
| Type: | Abri | |
| Discovery: | 1887 | |
Riparo Bombrini (Bombrini rock overhang or Bombrini abri ) is an archaeological site near Ventimiglia in northwest Italy near the French border. It is a collapsed rock overhang that forms part of the paleolithic complex of finds Balzi Rossi di Grimaldi in Liguria . Until the overhang collapsed, it was used by late Neanderthals for over ten millennia .
Discovery and digging
The site was discovered by E. Rivière in 1887 after it had already been badly damaged by the construction of the railway line between Genoa and Marseille . Although the Riparo Bombrini was known for more than half a century, excavations did not begin until 1938 by the Istituto Italiano di Paleontologia Umana . The site was named after the fascist Podestà Genoas Carlo Bombrini , who financed part of the excavations. The blade industry could be assigned to the Aurignacien .
A second excavation took place in 1976. Only the Balzi Rossi Museum was to be connected to the neighboring sites via paths, which in turn were supposed to facilitate access for the excavation projects of the Union Internationale des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques in Nice . It turned out that there were not only finds from the Aurignacia, but also from the late Moustérien . In addition to lithic and animal pieces (horse and deer could be identified) an incisor was found that was clearly related to a stratigraphic relationship. He therefore comes from the late Paleolithic and belonged to an anatomically modern person.
A third excavation took place between 2002 and 2005. Under the direction of Fabio Negrino, Brigitte M. Holt, Steve E. Churchill and Vincenzo Formicola, questions of chronology , the climate-historical context and research into behavior should be researched. These mainly related to the transition between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic . This included the question of whether there was an abrupt transition between Moustérien and Proto-Aurignacien. In fact, between these two layers, which were already known from the earlier excavation or publication of their results (1984), there was another, almost sterile layer of Mussérien elements. The excavations dealt with 3 m² of the area that had already been excavated by Vicino in 1976, plus 8 m² within the Abri, which had previously remained untouched. It was sieved out to a minimum size of 2 mm, finds 2 to 5 cm in size were individually scanned and processed in three dimensions.
The excavations on Riparo Bombrini have been continued since 2015.
Artifacts, raw materials from a radius of up to 350 km
Most of the lithic artifacts consist of machining scraps, i.e. flakes, blades, some prismatic and a few pyramid-shaped cores. There were also a number of Dufour bladelets , but only a few tools such as end scrapers , i.e. narrow blades or knives with at least one convex side for scraping, diggers and scrapers. Local stone material was mostly used, but flint was also sourced from Vaucluse and Provence . Rhyolites came from the Estérel massif, jasper came from eastern Liguria and from the Parma area , i.e. from stocks beyond the Apennines . Some small blades, which are characteristically brown to reddish in color, even come from the Scaglia formation in the Marche . These are located on the Adriatic around 350 km from the Bombrini Abri.
Find layers and dates
The two find layers of the late Moustérien and Proto-Aurignacien are 35 to 45,000 years old. Numerous lithic artifacts and highly fragmented animal remains were found in the Aurignacian stratum . In addition to bones, these include the shells of crustaceans, remains of birds and hares. There were also fire pits, pierced shells, carved objects and dyes. Three bird bones have parallel, deep cuts.
The stratum, which can be assigned to the late Moustérien, is significantly more clayey. While only a few remains of charcoal could be found in the upper layer, compaction in the older layer indicates two fireplaces. The oldest Proto-Aurignacian layer is about 42,000 years old and separated from the younger Moustérien layer (M4) by a 1,500-year-old layer. The oldest layer (M7) is around 45,000 years old.
A relatively warm climate can be deduced from the finds, even if the uppermost Moustéry layer (M1 and M2) contains indications of a drastic cooling. The almost sterile intermediate layer shows signs of warming, while the Aurignacia layers (A1 and A2) again show strong temperature contrasts.
Notes on the organizational behavior of the Neanderthals
There were considerable differences in the type of use. While the tools (only a few retouched pieces) indicate that layers M2 to M5 should be interpreted as a base camp for hunting companies, layers M1 and M6 to M7 show a different behavior. These groups were more likely to be stationary and swarmed out into the surrounding area from here. The MS shift indicates only short-term, occasional stays. Although this investigation was based on the composition of the tools, the procurement of raw materials and management strategies, the spatial organization within the site or the procurement of the hunted and caught prey was not examined.
Subsequent studies showed that the type of spatial self-organization by the Neanderthals differed depending on the context of use or mobility strategy. The distribution of the artifacts suggests that they separated rooms that were used for slaughter, housing or tool making. However, since this investigation has not yet been completed, this result contrasts with that from Grotta Breuil , which does not allow any signs of this type of correlation between use and “living space”.
literature
- Julien Riel-Salvatore, Ingrid C. Ludeke, Fabio Negrino, Brigitte M. Holt: A spatial analysis of the Late Mousterian levels of Riparo Bombrini (Balzi Rossi, Italy) , in: Canadian Journal of Archeology 37.1 (2013) 70– 92.
- Giuseppe Vicino: Lo scavo paleolitico al Riparo Bombrini (Balzi Rossi di Grimaldi, Ventimiglia). In: Rivista Ingauna e Intemelia. Nuova Series Vol. 39, 1984, ISSN 1122-2107 , pp. 1-10.
Web links
- Dig team's Twitter account
Remarks
- ↑ The found complex includes the Grotta del Conte Costantini, the Grotta dei Fanciulli, then the Riparo Lorenzi, the Grotta di Florestano, the Riparo Mochi, the Grotticella Blanc-Cardini, the Grotta del Caviglione, the Riparo Bombrini, and Barma Grande, which was destroyed Barma del Bausu da Ture, finally the Grotta del Principe (Art. Balzi Rossi at treccani.it)
- ↑ This section follows Margherita Mussi , Patrizia Gioia, Fabio Negrino: Ten small sites: the diversity of the Italian Aurignacian. In: ʿ Ofer Bar-Yosef , João Zilhão (Ed.): Towards a Definition of the Aurignacian. Proceedings of the Symposium Held in Lisbon, Portugal, [Centro Cultural de Belém], June 25-30, 2002 (= Trabalhos de arqueologia. 45). Instituto Português de Arqueologia, Lisbon 2006, ISBN 972-8662-28-9 , pp. 189–209, here pp. 192–195.
- ↑ Fabio Negrino, Elisabetta Starnini: Patterns of lithic raw material exploitation in Liguria from the Palaeolithic to the Copper Age. In: Service Régional de l'Archéologie d'Auvergne: Les matières premières lithques en préhistoire (= Préhistoire du Sud-Ouest. Supplément No. 5). Association de Préhistoire du Sud-Ouest, Cressensac 2003, pp. 235-243.