Daniela Zampetti

Between 1977 and 1986 an Italian expedition from the Sapienza University of Rome carried out six diggings campaigns in the well-known predynastic site of Maadi (IV mill. B.C.). The investigation, conducted by the Italian Expedition for the Researches in Egypt and Sudan under the direction of S. M. Puglisi and A. Palmieri, covered an area of around 450sqm. The excavation was located in the eastern part of the ancient settlement, diametrically opposite to the more recent diggings executed by the German Archaeological Institute. The study of the documentation, still unpublished except for some preliminary papers, has been resumed by the authors. This material represents the occasion to complete the information contained in the past monographs about the first excavations done at Maadi, deepening the stratigraphic aspect which is fundamental for the understanding of the dynamics of formation and development of the site and in general of the Lower Egypt Predynastic culture, and to reconsi...

Il capitolo presenta i dati finora raccolti sull'arte rupestre del territorio di Fewet (Fezzan libico), mettendo in relazione il repertorio artistico Garamantico del Tadrart Acacus e delle aree circostanti. I caratteri generali dell'arte rupestre di epoca Garamantica erano già stati esposti dall'autrice nel volume dedicato al sito di Aghram Nadharif. Nel presente contributo vengono inclusi i dati inediti raccolti nel 2005 dal team coordinato dall'autrice, nell'ambito della missione italo-libica nel Fezzan

The present paper investigates, using a multidisciplinary approach, the dynamic of the settlements in the mountains of Ouled Nail (Algeria) during the Holocene as an attempt to reveal an important historic phenomenon in connection with the expansion of the human establishment. Indeed, the archaeological researches led from 1939 to 1955 in North Africa support the Capsanisation movement where the excavated sites were dated back to the Upper Pleistocene and constitutes the most complete archaeological sequence known until today in the Atlas region. The presented results will display the first systematic analysis of rock art, lithic industries and funeral monuments during the Capsien period which is supported by chronological, and palaeoenvironmental data. Today, using geomatics and analytical techniques such as GIS as well as and archaeological investigations, allow us to understand the settlement processes during prehistorical and protohistorical periods

Between 1977 and 1986 an Italian expedition from the Sapienza University of Rome carried out six diggings campaigns in the well-known predynastic site of Maadi (IV mill. B.C.). The investigation, conducted by the Italian Expedition for the Researches in Egypt and Sudan under the direction of S. M. Puglisi and A. Palmieri, covered an area of around 450sqm. The excavation was located in the eastern part of the ancient settlement, diametrically opposite to the more recent diggings executed by the German Archaeological Institute. The study of the documentation, still unpublished except for some preliminary papers, has been resumed by the authors. This material represents the occasion to complete the information contained in the past monographs about the first excavations done at Maadi, deepening the stratigraphic aspect which is fundamental for the understanding of the dynamics of formation and development of the site and in general of the Lower Egypt Predynastic culture, and to reconsi...

Polesini Cave is located nearby Tivoli (RM) on the Eastern side of the Aniene river (RM). The cave held archaeological deposits ranging from Late Upper Palaeolithic to Late Roman Empire. The Late Upper Palaeolithic deposits are well known and studied since their richness in both lithic and faunal remains and, moreover, for the conspicuous presence of mobile art and personal ornaments. The huge lithic assemblage found in this site consists of 400.000 chipped stone tools, among which the shaped items are 25.000. Many artefacts made of hard animal material are also present, together with ornaments made out of the same raw materials. The mobile art is represented by various stone pebbles and bones engraved with zoomorphic or geometric patterns that represent the most important evidence of Palaeolithic art in Central Italy. This article presents the results achieved from an investigation on the functional role of one of the most common typological categories of chipped stone tools found at Polesini Cave: burins. Various technological and use-wear studies have shown that the functional role of this type is not univocal. In fact, a “burin like” morphology can be related to an artefact used to engrave but also to scrape; it can be related to a hafting area or, instead to be an artefact, it could be a core or, simply, a technological or a post-depositional accident. Whit this picture in mind, we carried out the experimental and use-wear analysis of a selection of 500 burins coming from ten different layers. The results of the use-wear analysis show that only 20% of the sample holds traces of use, suggesting that a great part of this category was unused. The functional interpretation of the items with use-wear fits well with a systematic use as carving tools on different materials, with few exceptions related to scraping activities. Since Polesini Cave is rich in carved mobile art, we tried to investigate the role that these burins had for the production of the artwork. The integration of the use-wear analysis of the lithic tools with the techno-morphological analysis of the signs engraved on the stone mobile art allowed to recognize a functional relation, although not exclusive, between burins and mobile art

Studi recenti di contesti del Paleolitico Inferiore Finale nel Vicino Oriente e in Europa hanno dimostrato che le schegge di piccole dimensioni (small tools) sono elementi tecnologici rilevanti di questo periodo. E stato dunque necessario rivisitare l’idea del bifacciale come unico marcatore tecno-culturale della fase cronologica e culturale denominata Acheuleano. In questo articolo vogliamo discutere il ruolo funzionale svolto dagli small tools attraverso i risultati dell’analisi delle tracce d’uso effettuata su questa categoria di strumenti provenienti dal sito acheuleano di Fontana Ranuccio (Frosinone).

Grotta Polesini, close to Rome in central Italy, was excavated in the Fifties of last century. The archaeological collection, which is extremely rich, includes one of the major series of decorated and/or utilized pebbles so far discovered in Italy. We describe below 65 limestone pebbles, many of them engraved. This includes the so-called "killed wolf", which has been quoted as evidence of hunting magic. We rather interpret the holes on the engraved wolf as the outcome of natural processes of dissolution.

We present a new find coming from a cave in the Frasassi Gorge (Marche, central Italy), a region where large open-air Late Gravettian sites (Ponte di Pietra and Fosso Mergaoni), located a few kilometers from the gorge, record the human presence in this region at 18-20 C14 ky BP. The Venus was discovered by one of us (SP) at the base of a local man-made scarp at the entrance of the cave. Although it was not found in situ, the simple stratigraphical setting of the nearby sequence and the fact that in the past there was an archaeological layer, later destroyed, allows us to establish that layer 3 is the best candidate for the provenience of the Venus and, together with the typology, its preliminary attribution to the Late Pleistocene. The statuette is made on a stalactite 87 mm high and it is elongated in the direction of the growth of the stalactite. The rear view reveals that its volume is roughly shaped in four parts. The fore view displays a vaguely shaped head, with the face separ...

Since 2005 the Aswan-Kom Ombo Archaeological Project has been working on the rock art sites from Gharb Aswan and Wadi Abu Subeira. Many are the localities recorded up until now, mainly along the river and on wadi bottoms. The representations are dated from prehistory to the ...

... Come diventare artisti paleolitici: un esempio di riproduzione di incisioni decorative su ciottolo. Autores: Daniela Zampetti, Cristina Lemorini, Patrizia Carlini; Localización: Origini: Preistoria e protostoria delle civiltà antiche, ISSN 0474-6805, Nº 23, 2001 , págs. 25-70. ...

SUMMARY. — The paintings of Ifran-n-Taska are one of the rare testimonies of this kind of non-engraved rock art in Morocco. The site is of high relevance for a comprehensive approach of archaeology of the whole Eastern Jbel Bani which lays to the South-West of Zagora, in the presaharan fringes of Morocco. A Moroccan-Italian research programme has been set up to study these paintings in their whole ethnoarchaeological context. The first fieldwork has been undertaken from 10 to 25 of October 2009 by a pluridisciplinary team composed by four prehistorians, one anthropologist and one geologist. The drawings have been made of red ochre, white, black and yellow, on the inner sides of five shelters at the edge of a dry river. Besides the inventory and study of these paintings, the fieldwork has undertaken an extensive prospection in the whole of the plateau of Tafraout-n-Taska. Comprehensive interviews have also been conducted with the chiefs of a couple of Aït Atta nomadic families that a...

... Come diventare artisti paleolitici: un esempio di riproduzione di incisioni decorative su ciottolo. Autores: Daniela Zampetti, Cristina Lemorini, Patrizia Carlini; Localización: Origini: Preistoria e protostoria delle civiltà antiche, ISSN 0474-6805, Nº 23, 2001 , págs. 25-70. ...