Toirano revisited. Nuove ricerche geoarcheologiche e paleontologiche nella Grotta della Bàsura (Toirano, SV). Primi risultati dello studio multidisciplinare delle tracce antropiche e dei depositi a fauna del Pleistocene superiore

The present paper summarizes the new results of the “Bàsura revisited” interdisciplinary research project. Revision of paleontological data on Ursus spelaeus occupation of the cave and new data coming from a test excavation made in the “Sala dei Misteri” are here presented together with the preliminary results of radiometric dates performed on bear bones and charcoals. The integrated interpretation of recent archaeological data and palaeosurfaces laser scans, along with geoarchaeological, sedimentological, geochemical and archaeobotanical analyses, geometric morphometrics and digital photogrammetry of human footprints, enabled us to reconstruct the activities that an Upper Palaeolithic human group led inside a deep cave in northern Italy within a single exploration event dating about 14 ky cal BP. A complex and diverse track records of humans and other animals shed light on individual and group level behaviour, social relationship, and mode of exploration of the uneven terrain at the end of the Upper Palaeolithic. A group of five individuals, composed of two adults, an adolescent and two children, entered the cave barefoot lightening the way with a bunch of wooden sticks (Pinus t. sylvestris/mugo bundles) apparently for a single exploration episode, despite the fact that they left several traces of possible symbolic behaviour that will be the subject of future research projects.