MADONNA DELL’OSPEDALE, UN SITO EPIGRAVETTIANO ANTICO AL MARGINE DELL’APPENNINO MARCHIGIANO : OSSERVAZIONI SULLA PRODUZIONE LITICA

The present study is part of a large-scale research project concerning the peopling of the Marche Apennine during the Lateglacial viewed through the evolution of the Epigravettian lithic production. The case-study is the lithic industry recovered almost 25 years ago at Madonna dell’Ospedale (Cingoli, prov. Macerata), a site which had been partially quarried out. While most of the artefacts were collected from surface, in 1984 a small collection was also recovered from two archaeological layers embedded into gravelly deposits, put in light in a test trench dug during a rescue operation. Due to the presence of shouldered points, the assemblage was accordingly attributed to the Early Epigravettian. No radiocarbon dates are so far available. The artefacts from the two collections have been analysed separately. They are very similar to each other, both from a technological and from a lithological perspective. The production pattern of standardised blade blanks clusters into specific dimensional and morpho-technical classes. The production of highly standardized blade and bladelet blanks was apparently the outcome of a differential management of the raw blocks, which were selected according to size variability, but were rather similar in global morphological outline. Cores, either blade or bladelet cores, are exploited according to the shape of flint cobbles. Size predetermination of large blades, of blades and of various types of bladelets probably was a function of the way followed in shaping and positioning the flaking surfaces. Size variability of retouched implements has also been taken into account. The tool main classes, i.e. retouched blades, backed bladelets and shouldered points, are consistent all over the spectrum of unretouched laminar blanks. Thicker blanks were selected to be shaped into retouched blades and backed bladelets; conversely, thinner blanks were used for shouldered points. Direct evidence of tool production is provided by a number of refitted artefacts, one of them deliberately retouched. Paucity in retouched tools and absence of faunal remains suggest that the site function was rather specialised and mostly devoted to blank production and hunting weapons production as well as, probably, maintenance. Considerations about the cultural and the chronological attribution of the assemblage are based on the existence of shouldered points, a characteristic tool of early Epigravettian assemblages, spread all over the Italian peninsula, in a large time interval ranging from 24,800 to 18,700 Cal BP. The assemblage from Madonna dell’Ospedale, accordingly, can be bracketed in the chronological sequence of the Marche region, between the end of the final Gravettian (Fosso Mergaoni, with a minimum age of 21,400 Cal BP at 1σ), and the beginning of the Late Epigravettian (Baracche, with a maximum age of 18,000 Cal BP at 1σ).