Sezione Archeologia

The upper Vallagarina between Besenello and Mori has produced much archaeological evidence dating to the Early Bronze Age (2200-1650 a.C.). Settlements, burials and cult places are widely distributed on the valley floor, on terraces and on hills mid-way up the mountain sides. We are dealing with small villages and isolated farms. In trying to reconstruct the management system for the exploitation of resources in this territory, we could assume that the arable land was used at the family level, whereas the other resources, such as, fo example, the woods and the pastures, were exploited by the whole community. Of major importance was the control of the routes along the vallay bottom, one of which was the river Adige itself. In most cases the settlements are located in strategic positions in order to have direct control of the waterway. Typical examples are Castel Pradaglia, Dosso Alto di  Borgo Sacco and Castel Tierno. Cemeteries and cult sites are always sited within caves or rock-shelters. By applying a system similar to Thyssen polygons, the limits of the hypothetical supply zones for each settlement can be traced. The resulting map gives some idea of how the economy of the valley was organized at a  local level and points out new directions in the search for further sites that could fill to the obvious "gaps" that are currently perceived.

This contribution presents a bronze axe found at the beginning of the century just south of the church San Pietro in Bosco in the disctrict of Ala, on the left side of River Adige (TN, Italy). It is a sporadic object, as yet unpublished, particularly interesting for the protohistory of Vallagarina. It cast new light on the history of human settlement in the area at the beginning of the Iron Age.

After a short generic introduction about the Enigmatic Tablets phenomenon, the article describes two tablets from the area of Rovereto (TN, Italy). The artifact from Dosso Alto (Borgo Sacco, Rovereto, TN) is already known in the literature but here it is re-published in a more detail way; the other is the result of a recent donation and it comes from the famous Bronze Age site of " Colombo di Mori " (TN). In the conclusion I try to take stock of the situation drawing a geographical and chronological framework of the Enigmatic Tablets phenomenon. In this scheme the tablets from Trentino Alto Adige represent a key element to better understand the link between the Po valley and central-eastern Europe.

The present manuscript documents traces of prehistoric use of a rock shelter near San Colombano hermitage. Based on the examination of a photograph took in the late 1980s, depicting prehistoric pottery
fragments and animal bones found in the area but now lost, hypotheses about the site’s chronology and original function are advanced. The pottery shape and particularly the structure of the two handles can be
dated back between the XIX and the XVIII century b.C. Geographical, geomorphological, astronomical and anthropological considerations suggest that the described rock shelter may have served as worship
place dedicated to waters at the beginning of the Bronze Age.

Flint tools

This article analyses all the flint finds from Loppio – S.Andrea Island (TN, Italy). There are overall 106 flint finds. Most represent undetermined refuse flakes. Some artefacts are prehistoric, some medieval. Among the first there are arrowheads, scrapers and
fragments of other tools. On the basis of morphology, all of the artefacts could be dated to the Copper Age (3500-2200 BC) when the island could had been used for burying the dead or simply for fishing, hunting or other purposes but was not used as a
settlement, because of the lack of pottery. Instead, the medieval flint artefacts were all used only as ‘flint and steel’, namely for lighting the fire. In some cases we found that artefacts were used more times, both in the prehistory and in the Middle Ages. Indeed
we can see some typical ‘flint and steel’ use-wear on prehistoric items.
To recognize the different use-wear we have experimented by using the flint on a piece of soft iron and then studying it under the microscope. In the same way we have tried to understand the tools used to work the raw flint, observing primarily the point of
impact and the bulb of percussion.
We can note that on this site, in the Middle Ages, for lighting the fire every kind of flint was used, a high quality pre-worked yellow flint, low quality red rough flint removed from the island bedrock as well as an ancient prehistoric artefact. We can conclude
therefore that there was not a really local flint manufacturing industry.
The distribution of the flint finds is interesting as well. The medieval flints were spread around the whole island whereas the prehistoric ones were concentrated in Sector A. This is a further evidence of the casualness of the oldest human presence in the
island. Indeed, the less steep ground that could be found was used on the island before the medieval terracing.
However, all prehistoric finds come from medieval layers. They have been moved some millennia after their deposition. But for one of them, a Copper Age arrowhead, we can reconstruct the original position. It comes from a heap of filling earth of a nearby big oval hole, near Building V in Sector A. Regarding the origin of the raw material we can presume, even without chemical analysis, that the flint was easily gathered both on the island rock itself and from the near prominence of ‘Monte Baldo’. This mountain, and the neighbour ‘Lessini’, were an important hub for the flint commerce from the Neolithic to the last century (used for the trigger of the rifles).