Tool-kits, subsistence and land-use patterns: Neanderthal ecology revisited across a dense cultural sequence in the Alpine chain.

Studies of the way Neanderthal groups used knapping technologies and organized their economy and land-use are sparse in Europe and even scantier in the Alps, so only in some regions can cyclical and seasonal residential movements be inferred from data on the exploitation of ungulates with variable levels of migratory behavior. Two of the most widespread methods used in stone knapping were the Discoidal and Levallois. However, analyses of these lithic artifacts are not yet sufficiently integrated into a corpus of zooarchaeological indicators that outline an ecological profile of Neanderthal mobility. To address this issue, this study presents evidence from Grotta di Fumane in northern Italy, where the use of manufacturing technologies is embedded in a dense Late Mousterian sequence. Given the specific ecological and contextual setting on the Southern Alps, we assume that Neanderthals exploited knappable rocks balancing transport costs and utility and that hunting activity was shaped by the availability of game and that well-established, cost-effective patterns were used in carcass processing. Compared on a broader scale with other contexts, these foraging practices show striking differences each other and suggest that a common model for Neanderthal subsistence strategy cannot be applied.