DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15363594
title: Research Compendium for 'A crossroads between the Mediterranean and the Alps: Lithic technology, raw material procurement, and mobility in the Aurignacian of Riparo Bombrini'

description: Compendium DOI:

https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.15363594

The content available at the above provided URL will reproduce the results as documented in the publication. Instead, the files hosted at https://github.com/ArmandoFalcucci/Bombrini-Crossroads represent the developmental versions and might have undergone modifications since the paper's publication.




 

Maintainer of this repository:

Armando Falcucci (armando.falcucci@uni-tuebingen.de)




 

Published Paper:


Armando Falcucci, Stefano Bertola, Martina Parise, Matteo Del Rio, Julien Riel-Salvatore, Fabio Negrino (2025) A crossroads between the Mediterranean and the Alps: Lithic technology and mobility in the Aurignacian of Riparo Bombrini. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 79: 101705. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101705

 



Abstract:

Riparo Bombrini is a collapsed rockshelter within the Balzi Rossi site complex, located at the intersection of the Maritime Alps, the Apennines, and the Tyrrhenian Sea. This unique environmental setting has served as a crucial biogeographical corridor for human mobility along the Liguro-Provençal Basin during the Paleolithic. Multidisciplinary research at Bombrini has revealed three distinct Aurignacian layers overlying a semi-sterile Mousterian layer. This paper explores the internal variability of the Protoaurignacian at the site by analyzing lithic assemblages from layers A2 and A1, along with a previously undescribed Early Aurignacian assemblage from the uppermost layer, A0. Through an analysis of assemblage integrity, lithic technology, and raw material procurement, we identify distinct mobility and land-use strategies employed by early Homo sapiens foraging groups, despite overall technological uniformity. Notably, lithic tools from both the Protoaurignacian and Early Aurignacian layers were frequently made from exogenous raw materials, many sourced from over 200 km away, spanning regions from the Rhône Valley in southeastern France to the central Apennines in Italy. The technological variability of these raw materials and their changing frequencies over time enabled us to identify distinct patterns of logistical and residential mobility, as noted in previous research at the site. Comparative analysis with other sites in adjacent regions further reveals that foragers possessed a sophisticated knowledge of their territories, challenging the long-standing view of the Protoaurignacian as the result of pioneering groups entering unfamiliar lands.



Keywords:


Early Upper Paleolithic; Foragers; Raw material Procurement; Site-Use Strategies; Reduction Intensity



 

Overview of contents and how to reproduce:


This repository contains data, code, and output files associated with the paper. The files are organized into the following directories:



data: Includes the complete dataset and the core dataset from Riparo Bombrini

script: Contains the R scripts for data analysis and visualization.

output: Houses the generated outputs from the analysis, including figures, tables, and supplementary material.


To replicate the results from the paper, follow these steps:



Download the entire repository.

Open the Bombrini-Crossroads.Rproj R project file.

Navigate to the script folder, where you will find the R scripts (i.e., RB_2D-outline-analysis, RB_Tables-Figures, Supplementary-Material)


For consistent results, the renv package (v. 1.0.3) was used, following the procedures outlined in its vignette. All analyses were performed using R 4.3.1 on Microsoft Windows 10.0.19045 (64-bit). Necessary packages are provided within the renv folder.



 

Licenses:


Code: MIT http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT, copyright holder: Armando Falcucci (2025).

Data and intellectual work: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), copyright holder: the authors (2025).