The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) has contributed to an international study published in the Journal of Human Evolution, with its researcher Paula García-Medrano among the co-authors. The study reconstructs the technological strategies of the hominins who occupied Notarchirico, near Venosa in the Basilicata region of southern Italy, between approximately 695,000 and 610,000 years ago. The findings reveal remarkable stability in stone-tool technology over nearly 100,000 years, despite changing climatic and environmental conditions.

Notarchirico is one of the few European sites to preserve such an extensive and well-dated archaeological sequence from this period. Its successive layers offer a rare opportunity to trace repeated hominin occupations across three Marine Isotope Stages (MIS 17, 16 and 15), spanning two interglacial periods separated by a glacial phase, and to explore how these populations responded to changes in their surroundings.

One of the study's key advances is the integration of material recovered during the earlier excavations led by Marcello Piperno between 1980 and 1995 with finds from the new campaigns, which began in 2016 under the direction of Marie-Hélène Moncel, of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris. This combined approach has enabled the researchers to examine around 2,100 lithic artefacts from 13 archaeological layers, including cores, flakes, pebble tools and bifaces, and to compare knapping strategies across the entire sequence.

To achieve this, the international team combined a technoeconomic analysis of stone-tool production with studies of raw material procurement, statistical methods and three-dimensional geometric morphometrics, allowing them to investigate variations in tool shape and the intensity of shaping.

The results show that hominins relied primarily on locally available raw materials, particularly chert and limestone, selecting stones according to their size, shape and quality. Small chert nodules were knapped to produce flakes, generally through short reduction sequences, while limestone pebbles and cobbles were used to make larger implements.
Differences can be observed between archaeological layers in artefact dimensions, tool-kit composition and core reduction strategies. However, these variations do not indicate a linear progression in technology or the replacement of one technological tradition by another.

Among the most significant innovations is the occasional appearance of bifaces, large cutting tools worked on both faces that are characteristic of the Early European Acheulean. Despite their relative rarity, these tools demonstrate the hominins' capacity for bifacial volume management and opportunistic shaping when suitable stone blanks were available.

Repeated occupations in a changing environment
The study also places these technological strategies within their environmental context. Over this long period, the landscape surrounding Notarchirico comprised a shifting mosaic of woodland, steppe and lakeside habitats, reflecting changing climatic conditions. The area was home to large mammals, including elephants, rhinoceroses, deer and hippopotamuses, whose remains also form part of the fossil record.

Use-wear traces identified on several chert flakes indicate contact with wood, plants and fleshy tissues, suggesting that these tools may have been used for cutting and scraping. Furthermore, the distribution of artefacts, together with evidence of tool recycling, points to repeated, probably short-term occupations associated with foraging and transit activities.

The researchers conclude that differences between the lithic assemblages are better explained by the availability of raw materials, the activities undertaken and the intensity of occupation than by long-term cultural change. Taken together, the findings make Notarchirico an exceptional record of hominin adaptability in southern Europe, revealing how populations maintained effective technological strategies over tens of thousands of years while responding flexibly to changing environmental conditions.

This research forms part of the ERC Advanced Grant LATEUROPE project (Grant Agreement ID: 101052653), funded by the European Research Council (ERC).