THE SITE OF QUARTO DELLE CINFONARE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LOWER PALEOLITHIC OF WEST-CENTRAL ITALY

Recent surveys in the Agro Pontino in west-central Italy have led to t he discovery of a number of open air Lower Palaeolithic sites. The exc avation in 1994 at one of these sites, Quarto delle Cinfonare in the A stura river valley, resulted in the collection of an abundant lithic i ndustry which can be dated to the Middle Pleistocene. The lithic indus try, which comes from the first sediments deposited at the beginning o f the Latina II transgression in a beach environment, is made on local flint pebbles and can be defined as microlithic since the average dim ension of the artifacts varies between 1 and 3 centimetres. The techni que used seems to have been predominantly that of bipolar percussion o n anvil, as the occurrence of torsions, spiked bulbs and other charact eristic attributes produced by this technique is very high. Among the retouched tools carinated forms with denticulated edges are the most n umerous. An analysis of the technological attributes of the lithic ass emblage, followed by a series of experiments, consented the hypothetic al reconstruction of the reduction sequence. Although the industry sho ws some affinities with those from other Middle Pleistocene sites in t his part of Italy such as Anagni-Fontana Ranuccio and Cava Pompi at Po fi, the typology and technology of the industry at Quarto delle Cinfon are clearly reflects the quality and in particular the size of the loc al raw material.