Le strutture di combustione al Riparo l’Oscurusciuto (Ginosa - TA)

The Oscurusciuto Shelter is located in the gravine of Ginosa, to the north of the homonymous town. This site contains an important Middle Paleolithic stratigraphic sequence, more than 6 meters thick, stretching to about 60 square meters. The part of the sequence excavated so far, covers a surface of 18 square meters. Investigation brought to light large quantities of lithic and faunal remains as well as several hearths from four different stratigraphic units. In the units containing the hearths (US 13, US 11, US 9, US 7) the auroch is very frequent. This bovid has been found in association with horse, red deer, fallow deer and roe deer. In the lithics the recurrent unipolar Levallois modality prevails. The upper part of the Oscurusciuto series (corresponding to the base of US 1) yielded a 14 C date of 38.500 ± 900 BP (AMS, Beta 181165; cal 42.975 ± 788 BP). Moreover a post quem chronological datum is available from a thick tephra layer (US 14) attributed to the Green Tuff of Mount Epomeo of Ischia (R. Sulpizio pers.com.), which dates back to about 55ky BP. This tephra layer seals a palaeosurface currently under study (US 15). Most of the hearths are located in small circular pits 3-5 cm deep, whose diameter is 20 to 50 cm. Structures showing smaller diameters were retrieved in the lowest unit (US 13) and in the lower part of US 11. Very often these hearths are totally or partially superimposed upon each other. Structures in small pits are concentrated along the one meter and half wide belt, bounding an area of about 2 square meters, located in the northern corner of the shelter. This area is completely devoid of any kind of structures. Conversely the upper US 7 yielded only one large hearth, consisting of a wide half-round hollow measuring about 2 meters in diameter, located exactly in the northern corner of the shelter.