Italian field trip

Two years after sampling sites in the south of Italy and leaving dosimeters for the OSL dating Marine and Tom returned to take the dosimeters back and do some additional gamma spec measurements.

The three sites; Oscurscuito (near Ginosa), Grotta della Cala (in Marina de Camerota) and Castelcivita (near Salerno) are important M-U Palaeolithic sites in Italy, archiving Mousterian, Uluzzian and Proto-Aurignacian sequences.

(Above). Francesco Boschin and Vincente Spagnoli excavating at Oscuruscuito.

Day 1 was Bari airport, then to Oscuruscuito, where we met with our friends and colleagues Annamaria Ronchitelli, Paolo Gambassini, Francesco Boshin and others. Here we hadn't left dosimeters, so we spent several hours taking gamma spec measurements. Marine presented her results to the team (above), which was very interesting, especially during the excavation.

Day 2 was Cala (above), which took very little time. We caught up with Adrian Moroni (below), Marco Peresani and Stefano Benazzi.

Day 3 was Castelcivita (below), where we overlapped with the opening of a major new exhibition in the cave itself.

Job done and it was back to Naples airport via a rapid stop in Herculaneum.