Technological and functional news from Adige Valley between late Mesolithic and early Neolithic

The transition from the last Mesolithic hunter-gatherer groups to the first Neolithic communities represents a significant change in the relationship between humankind and the environment, which is mirrored in many technical and productive variations. However, it is nowadays a shared idea that these changes did not take place in the same way everywhere; on the contrary, in different areas of Europe this transition occurred at different times with specificities linked to climatic-environmental differences and intercultural interactions. In this regard, the Adige Valley represents a peculiar case study; in fact, it is a structurally well-determined territory in which the transition is documented in various archaeological sites, which represent the reference stratigraphies of this period in the Italian Alpine area. In this research we present a comparison of two sites documenting the transition between the Mesolithic and Neolithic, both located in the Adige Valley in Trento province, and situated a few kilometres from each other: the Gaban rock-shelter (left side of the Adige river, ~270m above sea level and ~80m above the valley floor) and the open-air site of La Vela VII (right side of the Adige river, ~190m above sea level and ~10m above the valley floor). Starting from a re-examination of the stratigraphic context, new technological and functional data from the lithic and pottery industries allow us to expand the discussion on cultural and behavioural changes during the Neolithisation process. In the lithic industries, we highlight continuities linked to subsistence activities and some adaptations and/or changes in the production processes. The appearance of pottery represents an innovation, and its production by different raw materials throughout the early Neolithic attests a wide and increasing knowledge of the surrounding geological sources by the communities who inhabited the valley. Lastly, the comparison of the two sites’ locations, between the Adige valley floor and the piedmont area, with the new data here presented allows us to discuss both the territorial exploitation strategies on regional scale and the wider chrono-cultural context of north-eastern Italy.