The Shouldered Pieces from the Santa Maria di Agnano Cave (SMA-Extern). Their Chrono-cultural Positioning During the Upper Paleolithic in Southern Italy

ABSTRACT

The Santa Maria di Agnano cave (Puglia, Italy) shows a long human occupation that began in the Gravettian and went on in the Epigravettian periods. Among the lithic pieces discovered, many are so-called shouldered objects. This article intends to present and study them, but also to discuss the relevance of the diagnosis about shouldered points and shouldered bladelets. More broadly, the issue of the association of the shouldered point with ancient Epigravettian is discussed and questioned. On the basis of observations made in the Santa Maria di Agnano cave, the duration of existence of shouldered points and bladelets is discussed, which leads s to questioning the status of thes pieces as a key fossil.

KEYWORDS:

• Upper Paleolihic
• Apulia
• Gravettian
• Epigravettian
• shouldered pieces

Acknowledgements

The author is very grateful to the reviewers who improved the initial version of the article. He also gives his thanks to Liliane Garreau for the translation of the texts into English

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Henry Baills

Henry Baills began his career by studying the Neolithic of the East Pyrenean zone, which led to a thesis under the direction of Jean Guilaine. In the early 1990s, he oriented his research towards the Upper Paleolithic, first in the South of France, then in Italy, Tuscany and especially Puglia. For the last few years, he has been collaborating in the research programs of the UMR 7194 of the MNHM (Paris). It is in this capacity that he participates in the work of the Franco-Cambodian and Franco-Thai teams and the French mission in Papua New Guinea.