Editorial-Fire installations in Mediterranean Late Prehistory: Multidisciplinary approaches to their uses and functions

Since the term “personal gear” was introduced, the presence, in an archaeological lithic assemblage, of artefacts in allochthonous rocks has been considered as a source of information about land mobility and techno-economic organization. A technological and functional approach has been used to face the study of the lithic artefacts made in allochthonous raw materials from level 14 of the Ciota Ciara cave (north-western Italy). This level attests the phases of most intense frequentation of the cave, and it is the layer where allochthonous lithic raw materials are better represented. In a technological context described as markedly opportunistic, tools and unretouched flake, made in raw materials collected at a distance between 2 and 30 km, have been introduced in the site. The present work is aimed towards the understanding of the role of these artefacts within the technological organization of the Neanderthal groups that inhabited the cave. The results indicate that these “exotic” artefacts were part of a mobile toolkit and that they were multifunctional tools used for different activities (mainly butchering activities). We can hypothesize the transport within the site of finished products in the form of small, unretouched flakes and retouched tools, and, just sporadically, of small cores. The significative presence of Levallois radiolarite flakes in the Ciota Ciara toolkit is particularly interesting as the presence of this type of product in toolkits has already been reported by other scholars and for different European Middle Palaeolithic contexts. Moreover, the introduction in the site of unretouched flakes and of tools made in allochthonous and better-quality rocks could be interpreted as a planned behaviour, aimed at satisfying the need for more durable and efficient tools during the periods of staying at the Ciota Ciara cave.