Humans and their landscape from the Alpine Last Glacial Maximum to the Middle Holocene in Trentino: geoarchaeological considerations.

The aim of this paper is to present an overview of the landscape evolution of the Trentino region and its surroundings from the Alpine Last Glacial Maximum (ALGM) to the Middle Holocene, approximately between 22,000 and 4000 years cal BP. Since the 1970’s, the excavation and multidisciplinary study of Late Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic sites have allowed archaeologists to gather abundant – but unevenly distributed in space and time – data on the stratigraphy, geomorphology and Quaternary geology of the region. Further data derive from the analysis of the sites archaeology, archaeobotany and archaeozoology. The available information is resumed here to outline the palaeogeography and palaeoenvironment of the southern Alpine region in the examined time span and to understand the relationships between these factors and the settlement systems of the last hunter-gatherers and first shepherds and farmers who inhabited the area. Data presentation follows a chronological approach and tries to emphasize the transitional moments, as the retreat of the Alpine Pleistocene glaciers; the contrasting environmental conditions of the Lateglacial – with the temperate scenario of the Greenland Interstadial 1 (a.k.a. Bølling and Allerød), driving the human settlement towards the Prealpine margin and plateaux, and the cold pulsation of the Greenland Stadial 1 (a.k.a. Younger Dryas); the onset of the temperate Holocene situation from Preboreal and Boreal times, when the Mesolithic groups moved as far as the main Alpine range; the biostatic phase of the Atlantic, which saw the settlement of the first Neolithic groups; and the end of Atlantic, when the first effects of human impact are observed.