Territorial exploitation in the Tyrrhenian Gravettian Italy: The case-study of Bilancino (Tuscany)

The open-air Bilancino site (Mugello basin, Florence, Italy) may be ascribed to the Noaillian facies of the Gravettian. The site is dated to 25,410 ± 150 BP. As no faunal remains have been preserved due to the local deposit conditions, attention has been paid to the procurement strategy of the inorganic raw material – i.e. lithics and minerals – as well as to the exceptional evidence of behavior strictly related to vegetal food processing. Bilancino was a summer seasonal camp for the harvesting and the processing of hygrophilous herbs, in particular Typha latifolia (cattail). The Noailles burins were the tools that Gravettian people used to produce fibers from cattail; vegetal residues (starch) found on pestle-grinders and grinding stones provide the earliest evidence of a technique used in the preparation of flour based on wild plants. Mineral residues (hematite) found on another grinding stone, as well as fragments of this mineral found on the living floor of the site, provide evidence for the coloring of vegetable fibers and possibly other materials. Analysis of the provenance of the lithic and mineral raw material allows us to define the territory within which the Bilancino inhabitants may have found the natural sources for collecting the raw materials useful for their daily activities.