Grotta Paglicci, (Rignano Garganico, Foggia, southern Italy), an overview on the bone and antler production

The evidence of the bone and antler exploitation at Paglicci Cave (Rignano Garganico, Foggia, Southern Italy) are presented in the article. The analysis of the 104 osseous artefacts found in the Upper Palaeolithic sequence of the cave has allowed the authors to reconstruct the choices made by the prehistoric hunters both in terms of hunting and exploitation of hard animal materials for tool fabrication. Only some hunted animals bones were chosen for making the tools: deer, horse, aurochs and wild boar. A noteworthy observation concerns the lack of an interconnection between the kinds of species represented in the faunal assemblages and those used for the production of bone (and antler) tools. Even though the small number of pieces in each individual layer did not allow for statistical inferences, the authors could draw some interesting conclusions on the morpho-technological features of the artifacts, fi nding that some tool types appear to be linked to particular periods.