Activities and resource management in Early Mesolithic highland hunting shelters. Technological data from Mondeval de Sora - VF1 and Prà Comun, Passo Giau - PC1 (Belluno Dolomites).
Résumé
The Early Mesolithic occupation of the Alpine regions is well known, thanks to the hundreds of identified sites. For the populations of the Early Holocene, high-altitude environments represented a significant and non-negligible component of their economic and cultural systems. Among the numerous identified sites, rock shelters located under large boulders that feature multiple occupation phases play a crucial role in territorial mobility within high-mountain environments. Among them, the site of Mondeval de Sora - VF1 (Belluno Dolomites, Northeastern Italy) stands out for the richness of its archaeological findings. In recent years, a new rock shelter with rich Early Mesolithic layers has been discovered at approximately 3 km from it and excavated. This site is known as Prà Comun, Passo Giau - PC1. Currently, data on the economic role of these sites, in particular from a spatio-temporal perspective, are scarce, and their complexity is insufficiently detailed. However, the techno-traceological analysis of a sample of lithic artefacts from these two sites has provided new insight into the economic system that drove the occupation of such sites within the studied micro-regional context. The investigation has explored activities and utilisation needs, enabling a re-evaluation of the adopted technological systems. These preliminary data shed light on a small portion of the economic and organizational mechanisms of Mesolithic communities and help us define the role of these shelters within the seasonal mobility and resource management strategies applied in the Alpine landscape.