Resumen de Upper palaeolithic rock art of the italian peninsula. A general review, reframing it into an euro-mediterranean context
This thesis manuscript is a systematic work on the Palaeolithic rock art in the Italian peninsula including it into a wider debate involving the Euro-Mediterranean region, and offering a valid support for further researches in this field.
The first Palaeolithic rock art evidence in Italy was discovered in 1904, in the Romanelli cave, which was destined to be the only rock art site known in Italy until 1949, when Minellonno and Graziosi found the Cala del Genovese cave on the Levanzo island. Since then until the Eighties the majority of the Italian upper Palaeolithic rock art sites were discovered, thanks to Graziosi’s research that lasted for decades as the main reference for all the Palaeolithic rock art studies in Italy, despite several discoveries occurred in the other countries. Moreover a great discordance could be found in the available bibliography, where the concept of a “Mediterranean artistic province” or “facies” is still adopted.
So a deep review was urged in this sense. And a systematic and integrated approach was adopted to answer the following question: • Where are the sites? • What is their figurative and non-figurative palimpsest? • When was each site painted and/or engraved? In other words, what is their chronology? • What kind of relationships does exist among the different sites? • What is the context into which the rock art evidence is set? • What kind of relationships may have existed between rock art and landscape? • What was the role of the Italian boot during upper Palaeolithic, basing on the rock art evidence? • Can we establish any graphic difference or similarity with other palaeolithic rock art sites? If yes, where and when they occur? Eleven sites were selected as main review cases, according to their richness and significance from a bibliographic point of view: Balzi Rossi (Florestano, Blanc-Cardini and Caviglione caves - Ventimiglia, Imperia), Bàsura cave (Toirano, Savona), Arene Candide cave (Toirano, Savona), Luine open air rock art sites (Rocks No. 6 and 34 - Darfo-Boario Terme, Brescia), Fumane cave (Fumane, Verona), Romito shelter, Paglicci cave (Rignano Garganico, Foggia) and Romanelli cave (Castro, Lecce).
Through constant and systematic fieldworks, walls and rock of these sites were reviewed to check the presence of any new evidence. The study of each context has permitted to elaborate the best documentation strategy and the management of any extra analysis, where possible.
So it was used the 3D photogrammetry to document unaccessible rock art panels, samples of calcite covering red pigments were collected to have the first chronometric U/Th dating of the paintings in the Paglicci cave, geological support was used in the interpretation of the glacial lines on the Luine rocks, a distribution map of the rock art was elaborated in the Romanelli cave.
The sites are separately discussed adopting a multidisciplinary approach introducing all the relevant aspects, the geology, the archaeology, the history of the studies and the preservation analysis, before getting to a final discussion of the rock art evidence.
The review of the already known sites has permitted to better re-arrange all the data, in terms of chronology and spatial distribution. Moreover the new methodological proposal let introduce, for the first time in a systematic way, a series of analysis and variables in the study of this Palaeolithic rock art in the Italian peninsula, e.g. the first U/Th dating, the geological evaluation of the glacial lines on the Valcamonica rocks: an approach which goes beyond the mere morphological analysis, casting a different light on the rock art phenomenon in this territory during the upper Palaeolithic.
The definition of multi-phase sites, of different contact elements, the update of the rock art ensemble make possible to see at the Italian peninsula not as a dead-end in the wider context of the Palaeolithic rock art of the Euro-Mediterranean region, but a territory perfectly inscribed in the human and cultures moving dynamics: a sort of a bridgehead towards the Mediterranean basin.
