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Excavation

  • Grotta del Buso Doppio del Broion
  • Lumignano
  • Brojo
  • Italy
  • Veneto
  • Province of Vicenza
  • Longare

Tools

Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • The Buso Doppio del Broion, known by speleologists since the beginning of last century, is one of the many karstic caves opening in the Oligocenic carbonate rocks which form the ancient coral reef of Lumignano. This cave, situated at circa 135 m a.s.l., between the Riparo del Broion and the Grotta del Sengio Longo, takes its name from the presence of two more or less circular entrances, the largest of which gives access to the main gallery (gallery A) which develops on a north/west-south/east alignment for circa 12 metres and is circa 3 metres wide. In front of and at the base of the main entrance there was a large collapsed mass containing a patch of archaeological deposit from the surface of which a number of pottery fragments emerged. Beyond this access to the entrance was facilitated by a series of manmade steps cut into the bed rock below the vault.

    Towards the end of the gallery A a second branch opened leading to a chamber developing in a northerly direction (gallery B) circa 5 metres long and 3 metres wide. Three other offshoots opened from gallery B, two to the west (galleries C and D) and one to the east (gallery E). Another two galleries, without deposits, departed from the second entrance. During removal of the disturbed deposit, by volunteers from CAI, Vicenza, it immediately became clear that finds attesting a sporadic occupation of the cave during the last glacial maximal episode, circa 20,000 years, were present. In fact, the discovery of three “a cràn” points, similar to those found in the deposits of the Grotta di Paina at Mossano and di Trene at Nanto, made from Apennine flint, dated the origins of the upper part of the deposit inside the cave to the height of the II Wurmian Pleniglaciale period.

    The excavation extended over an area of 13 m2, where the stratigraphic units US1 – US6 were investigated. These layers formed a thickness of 2.5 m. The US1, maximum thickness 80 cm, was constituted by large masses that had collapsed from the vault and walls of the cave in a loessic sediment containing the remains of cave bear, elk, marmot, beaver, small and medium carnivores, fish vertebrae, birds and micro-mammals (rodents, chiropterans and other insectivores).
    The deepest section (US1 tt and III and IV) produced lithic industry characterised by the presence of a few waste products from flint working, mostly from the Berico-Euganean and/or Lessinean hills, and fragments of points with bipolar backs with thinning at the base and tip (cf. Gravettes, Vachones variant), one bi-point and fragments of early Gravettian backed blades. The US2 consisted of lenses limited to quadrants B7 and C7. It had a loessic matrix with a scarce limestone skeleton. The paleontological evidence was constituted by cave bear, large and medium mammals, fish vertebrae and micro-mammals. There was no lithic industry. The US3 had a loessic matrix with lumps of sub-rounded limestone and had been affected by post-depositional hill-wash and subsequent deformation caused by the weight of the overlying material. The faunal remains were constituted by middle to large mammals (including cave bear), fish vertebrae and a very few bird bones. In quadrant B7 3 sub-units were identified denominated 3a, 3b and 3c. US4 was a micro-stratified (laminated) organic layer with a loessic matrix. The latter comprised laminae only millimetres thick, more or less rich in organic material. The unit had a tabular morphology up to 30 cm thick. The faunal remains included cave bear, large, medium and small mammals, including carnivores; abundant micro-mammals and fish. Isolated fragments of carbonised wood were also present. There was no lithic industry. US5 had a clastic support with numerous interstitial gaps between the rocks that reached dimensions of 30-40 cm in diameter, and a scarce loess matrix. The layer reached a thickness of 80 cm. The upper part of the loessic matrix was scarcer and drier and the stones larger. In the central-lower parts (US5 base) the matrix was more abundant and damper, with smaller sized stones. This unit produced cave bear, marmot, fox and other mammals of large to medium size, occasional fish vertebrae, birds and an abundance of micro-fauna. The lithic industry was represented by 2 flakes with direct edge retouch (cf. Dufour), a few flakes and a little debris. Occasional charcoal was also present. US6, situated at a depth of circa 2.5 m still contained collapsed elements, constituted by lumps of sub-rounded limestone with a loessic matrix. In some points the Aeolian silt was particularly clean, without clasts, especially in the lower part. The faunal remains comprised cave bear, wolf and other large and medium mammals, fish vertebrae and micro-mammals. Lithic industry was absent. Occasional charcoal.

    The 2009 excavation reached the top of US7 which appeared as a loessic layer with limestone rocks, some of large dimensions (tens of centimetres) and with mammal bones including cave bear and marmot, birds and micro-fauna. The lithic industry was represented by a single mesiale fragment of micro-blade with direct edge retouch (cf. Dufour).

  • Alberto Broglio - Università degli Studi di Ferrara, cattedra di Paleontologia Umana 
  • Mirco De Stefani - Università degli Studi di Ferrara 
  • Fabio Gurioli - Università degli Studi di Ferrara 

Director

Team

  • Laurence Bouquet - Università de La Sorbonne (Parigi)
  • Antonio Tagliacozzo - Soprintendenza speciale al Museo Preistorico Etnografico “L. Pigorini” di Roma
  • Marco Bertolini - Università degli Studi di Ferrara
  • Matteo Romandini - Università degli Studi di Ferrara
  • Marco Peresani - Università degli Studi di Ferrara
  • Stefano Bertola - Università degli Studi di Ferrara
  • Giorgio Bartolomei - Università degli Studi di Venezia, cattedra di di Geografia Fisica
  • C. Ravazzi - Centro di Studio per dinamica alpina e quaternaria, CNR, Bergamo
  • Lucio Calcagnile - Centro di Datazione e Diagnostica dell’Università di Lecce
  • Sara Ziggiotti - Università degli Studi di Ferrara
  • Alberto Bizzi - C.A.I. di Vicenza
  • Ippolito Caneva - C.A.I. di Vicenza
  • Paolo Pretto - C.A.I. di Vicenza

Research Body

  • Centro di Datazione e Diagnostica dell’Università di Lecce
  • Istituto per la Dinamica dei Processi Ambientali del C.N.R di Dalmine (BG)
  • Soprintendenza Speciale al Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico “Luigi Pigorini”
  • Università di Ferrara, Dipartimento di Biologia ed Evoluzione

Funding Body

  • Banca del Centroveneto
  • Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Verona, Vicenza, Belluno e Ancona
  • Provincia di Vicenza
  • Regione Veneto

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