Chronology of the Grotta di Fumane

The Grotta di Fumane is one of the most important Palaeolithic sequences of Europe. The site lies around 350 m above sea level at the southern fringe of the Venetian Pre-Alps amidst picturesque woodland country of the national park of the Dolomites. Since it was discovered in the 1960s Fumane has been excavated by a team led by Prof. Alberto Broglio and now by Dr Marco Peresani (pictured).

The Fumane sequence consists of a series of sometimes shallow, fine-grained layers from the Mousterian, through 2 Uluzzian layers, a very important Proto-Aurignacian layer, and above that a sequence of later Aurignacian and Gravettian levels. The Proto-Aurignacian level provide evidence for complex dwelling structures, lithics, bone technology and pierced molluscan shells that are sometimes found in what appear to be caches.

Lithic and faunal material, hearths and other internally stratified structures with micro-stratigraphy are frequently found. Several pieces of painted rock, from the roof of the cave, have been found with what appear to be anthropomorphic figures on them in red ochre. Dating previously in our lab suggest that these are c. 35,000 BP in age. Recent discoveries and analysis of bone cut marks show that Neanderthals at the site were exploiting raptors. Marco Peresani and his team have suggested that this might mean that they were interested in feathers of these birds, and might have used them for decoration.

Previous work at the site showed that the large number of radiocarbon and other dates from the site, painstakingly obtained over several years, were likely to be dominated by erroneous measurements. We obtained a new series of robust ABOX and ultrafiltered bone collagen dates that provided a more reliable chronology. In July we revisited the site to meet with Marco Peresani, Matteo Romandini and their team, and select more samples for renewed dating of the latest Mousterian and Uluzzian levels at the site. The Uluzzian of course is currently in the spotlight due to the suggested association between it and anatomically modern humans, as shown at the site of Cavallo Cave in the south of Italy (Benazzi, Douka et al., 2011).

Fumane has amazing preservation. The bone is beautifully fresh and cutmarks and breakage marks are very easy to find (this bone retoucher is one of many that we saw, you can clearly see the marks where the bone was used to work a stone tool). It's one of the nicest sites to work on!

We wish that all sites were so good...unfortunately that is not the case of course. There is nothing more depressing than spending one or two days hunting for good quality material to date to find that none of the bones has any collagen in whatsoever. Luckily for us, Fumane is not one of those sites!

In a few months we hope to have some new results from Fumane which might shed further light on the Uluzzian and the transition to the Upper Palaeolithic in Italy.

For more on the Fumane site check their web page.