English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

The techno-functional approach has been employed to better understand one of the more relevant artifact types generally found in Lower Palaeolithic sites: so-called small tools. Particularly, some Italian sites, such as Ficoncella, Isernia and others, have been the subject of specialized studies which provide evidence of an unexpected complexity of technical behaviours mainly related to highly specialized functional properties of the small tools. In this paper, we aim to enhance the debate on the topic by presenting a techno-functional study of the entire lithic assemblage coming from one of the most renown Middle Pleistocene sites in southern Europe, the open-air site of Fontana Ranuccio (Central Italy). Five groups of retouched tools have been identified: cutting tools, where retouch is usually applied to isolate a cutting edge on the blank; pointed tools, where retouch isolates a pointed edge; scrapers; and few other types of retouched tools such as notches and denticulates. We discuss a reconstruction of the reduction sequence in association with the functional features of the produced stone tools in order to better understand these Middle Pleistocene hominin behaviours. Broadly speaking, retouch seems to be used as a real technical process, not distinguishable from the reduction sequence. What seems relevant here is the need to modify the original morphology of flakes and cores in order to shape them into the final objectives of the production. In this perspective, blank production  (débitage)  and tool shaping ( façonnage ) are tightly interconnected one on the other.

A Techno-Functional Interpretation of the Lithic Assemblage from Fontana Ranuccio (Anagni, Central Italy): an Insight into a MIS 11 Human Behaviour