The Riparo Smaldone was discovered in the early 1980s but no research has taken place there until now. To the north, the shelter presents a high concave rock face, slightly projecting, which is abutted, up to the roof, by about 4 m of deposit covering a visible surface area of 3 – 4-m2. The section towards the sea was eroded by the action of the water as attested by numerous blocks containing archaeological material that had slipped downhill. Towards the east, the rock face became heavily cemented breccia. The deposit relating to the Palaeolithic occupation of the shelter probably extends to the east over an area that is much larger than what is currently visible. The stratigraphic sequence, which largely remains to be defined, started at the top with yellowish silts of colluvial origin that covered a level with a red-brown clay matrix, mixed in places with clasts some of which large. This level, in secondary deposition, contained only occasional bones of large ungulates that were completely fossilized. Below began the extremely hard brecce containing anthropic material.

This season’s intervention had three main aims:
1) To begin the excavation of the deposit abutting the rock face;
2) The recovery of the lithic and faunal materials from the blocks that had slipped downhill;
3) The reconstruction of the geological events that created the deposit and the morphology of the surrounding area, including the past sea levels.
The excavation involved a surface area of 2 m2 (corresponding with quadrants G10 and H10), reaching a maximum depth of 110 cm in the north-eastern corner of H10.
The recovery of materials from the slipped blocks was useful for the comprehension of some technological aspects characterising the lithic production at the Riparo Smaldone within the context of the middle Palaeolithic in the region.

The geological research was of fundamental importance not only for the definition of the formative processes of the deposit and its probable extension, but also for the proposal of concrete hypotheses regarding the chronology of the Neanderthal occupation that occurred after the regression of the 5th marine isotope stage. Soil samples were taken for sediment analyses.