P. Biagi, E. Starnini 2018 - L’ARMA DELL’AQUILA (FINALE LIGURE, SAVONA) NEL QUADRO DELLE CONOSCENZE DELL’ALTO TIRRENO TRA PALEOLITICO SUPERIORE E MEDIO OLOCENE: UN BILANCIO A 70 ANNI DAGLI SCAVI

The authors summarize the results of the interdisciplinary approach to the study of the material remains from the first half of the 1900s excavations at Arma dell’Aquila. As already emphasized by famous archaeologists of that époque, this site represents one of the focal points to understand the pace and modes of the prehistoric human settlement along the coast of the northern part of the Tyrrhenian Sea. A series of radiocarbon measurements allowed to date to the Protoaurignacian the most ancient human presence in the rock shelter unearthed by Richard-Chiappella, confirming that also the Finalese was involved in the arrival of the first AMH, and attributing to an early phase of the Epigravettian the subsequent Upper Pleistocene frequentation of the site. The cave was later and intermittently settled during the Holocene, with alternate periods of frequentations, abandonments and burial use of the space during the Neolithic.