Climbing the time to see Neanderthal behaviour’s continuity and discontinuity: SU 11 of the Oscurusciuto Rockshelter (Ginosa, Southern Italy)

The Oscurusciuto Rockshelter (Ginosa, Southern Italy) is a perfect sample-site for the reconstruction of multiple aspects of the last Neanderthals life. Different settlement strategies are attested in the excavated portion of the stratigraphic sequence, dated between ~ 55 and 43 ka BP. As a first goal, the reconstruction of the site spatial organization across the palimpsest SU 11 was achieved by a high-temporal-resolution approach (assisted by sedimentological analysis), integrating lithic technology, zooarchaeology and spatial analysis (by means of the GIS technology). As a second goal, a diachronic perspective was adopted by comparing results from SU 11 with the previously studied evidence from the underlying SU 13. Results were processed at a diachronic scale, highlighting similarities and differences related both to the type of activities carried out at the site and to their spatial management. This allowed us to recognize discontinuities and, especially, continuities of settlement dynamics, which can be related to phenomena of cultural transmission hinting to a “memory of places”. Such results stimulate the debate not only on the necessity to study Middle Palaeolithic contexts at different temporal scales but also on the necessity to develop more refined multidisciplinary analytical protocols. The study of settlement dynamics at high-resolution scales allows to take advantage of the potentialities of contextual analysis i.e. the integration of results from different disciplines and data from the whole range of archaeological evidence in order to reconstruct solid behavioural models.