Il presente contributo espone i risultati condotti sulle cuspidi foliate dei complessi litici dell'età del Rame del territorio di Roma.
La tradizionale analisi tecno-tipologica dei manufatti è integrata con l'impiego di analisi di statistica multivariata, fornendo nuove prospettive per la comprensione delle industrie litiche dell'età dei Metalli.

ABSTRACT
Recent research perspectives which highlight the long lasting process undertaken by the Near East communities towards domestication allows us to establish comparisons with similar North African situations. The article starts recalling the main characteristics of plants and animals used by the Holocene groups distributed along the southern Med¬iterranean coast. It then proceeds focusing on the main archaeological sequences, both in the Southern Levant and in the Libyan and Egyptian Sahara which, beginnings from the early Holocene, offer the oldest proofs of domestication and/or management of wild species. In both cases the evidence of the long period elapsed between the first domes¬tication attempts and the full establishment of agricultural/pastoral production, urges us to recognize in this period the intermediate stage that in anthropology is called “Low-Level Food Production”. The consideration of this “middle ground” fully grasps the identity of the North African groups allowing to better clarify its characterizing ele¬ments, expression of a complete and autonomous economic and social space that the definition of foragers-herders no longer could adequately describe.
                                                                                          * * *
La nuova prospettiva di ricerca che evidenzia il lungo processo intrapreso dalle comunità del Vicino Oriente verso la domesticazione consente di stabilire comparazioni con situazioni analoghe attestate in Nord Africa. L’articolo dapprima richiama breve¬mente le principali caratteristiche delle specie, piante e animali, in uso presso le comu¬nità distribuite lungo la costa meridionale del Mediterraneo. Di seguito si sofferma sulle principali sequenze archeologiche, sia nel Levante meridionale che nel Sahara Libico e in quello Egiziano che, a partire dagli inizi dell’Olocene, offrono le più antiche atte¬stazioni di domesticazione e/o management di specie selvatiche. Le prove, in entrambi i casi, del lungo periodo intercorso tra i primi tentativi di domesticazione delle specie e la piena affermazione di produzione agricolo/pastorale, impone di prenderne coscienza e di riconoscere in esso lo stadio intermedio che in antropologia è stato chiamato Low-Level Food Production. La considerazione di questo stadio intermedio coglie appieno l’identità dei gruppi nordafricani e ci obbliga a chiarirne meglio gli elementi caratte¬rizzanti, espressione di uno spazio economico e sociale autonomo che la definizione di allevatori-raccoglitori non riesce a cogliere adeguatamente.


Archaeology of Food : http://www.scienzeelettere.it/book/50173.html

While the human figure appears rather rarely in the painted or engraved African rock art works if compared with the overwhelming presence of animalistic representations, rock art remains, in any case, the field that could offer one of the best representations of prehistoric peoples. However, whether we can really use rock art as a complement of the concrete evidence, i.e. the material data resulting from the excavations, is still problematic. Compared with the high degree of objectivity pursued by field archaeology the reading of the scenes, their placement and the message they send, are still constrained by the limits of subjective interpretations and interpreter's competence. An approach able to decrypt messages and aimed towards an understanding of man/woman roles would certainly be useful, but for this purpose, it is necessary to abandon some previous misconceptions of the archaeological literature. In this light, the paper deals with the elements in favour and against the use of rock art as a field of detection of gender roles distribution in the Holocene Saharan societies.

Recent research perspectives which highlight the long lasting process undertaken by the Near East communities towards domestication allows us to establish comparisons with similar North African situations. The article starts recalling the main characteristics of plants and animals used by the Holocene groups distributed along the southern mediterranean coast. It then proceeds focusing on the main archaeological sequences, both in the Southern Levant and in the Libyan and Egyptian Sahara which, beginnings from the early Holocene, offer the oldest proofs of domestication and/or management of wild
species. In both cases the evidence of the long period elapsed between the first domestication attempts and the full establishment of agricultural/pastoral production, urges us to recognize in this period the intermediate stage that in anthropology is called “LowLevel Food Production”. The consideration of this “middle ground” fully grasps the
identity of the North African groups allowing to better clarify its characterizing elements, expression of a complete and autonomous economic and social space that the definition of foragers-herders no longer could adequately describe.

In the final and most arid phases of the Pleistocene, human occupation in the Sahara dramatically decreased and may even have been completely interrupted (Garcea, this volume). This means that the groups present from the early Holocene onwards, in areas that are today desert, were immigrants, who reoccupied territories long abandoned as soon as more favourable climatic conditions permitted. The archaeological record documents the adaptations that their way of life underwent through successive episodes of early and mid-Holocene climate change. This chapter at first, together with the relevant palaeoclimatic evidence, looks at three themes of general relevance for early/middle Holocene Saharan and Sahelian hunter-gatherer-fishers: microlithic toolkits; the innovation of pottery; and the development, at least in some areas, of a more sedentary pattern of settlement. It then examines the archaeological records of different parts of the Saharan/Sahelian region in more detail.

The article is the monographic illustration of the results attained in the 1970’s by the “Italian Palaethnological Mission in the Libyan Sahara”, Sapienza University of Rome, with the excavations of two sites in the Wadi Ti-n-Torha, Auis area (northeastern  Tadrart Acacus): the Ti-n-Torha East and Ti-n-Torha North shelters. (A digitalized copy of the article is now available).

Modern archaeology is a very complex science in which the study of past societies must address and take into account the needs of today's societies and, indeed , Africa is a privileged field for the application of this model. Over the years in all African countries the efforts aimed at the protection and revaluation of "cultural heritage" gained greater prominence, while its role in society was changing, in parallel with the approach to its management, as required by the new concept of historical landscape. The article draws a long scientific path going back to the 1990s and starting from theoretical statements on the role of archaeology and claims of originality of the historical and archaeological studies in Africa. It therefore focuses on the various objectives achieved, from the tendencies of public archaeology, developing their action in the field of education, training and knowledge dissemination, to the most up-to-date forms of enhancing the archaeological heritage and the environment as a single macro-system. An example of this strategy is offered by the creation of National Archaeological Parks in various Saharan countries, mainly as a protection strategy towards tourism and development plans.

The dynamics affecting coastal areas of North Africa, especially the rise of Neolithic economies, remained
largely unexplored until a few years ago. There are no definitive answers for questions about how groups
belonging to a very well-documented late Palaeolithic tradition developed locally, and if and how these
changes resulted from outside influences that may have affected the region during the middle and late
Holocene. This is especially true of the provenance and success of the main domesticates, in other words
the plant (wheat, barley, pulses) and animal species (sheep/goat, cattle, pigs) which constitute the North
African Neolithic complex. The obvious intrusion of the domesticates from outside has prompted various
authors to seek their exotic locations, but reasons and circumstances that led to the displacement of
groups were rarely discussed in trying to reconstruct modalities and routes of diffusion. To understand
and study these problems, a trans-regional perspective including North Africa and the Levant seems
necessary, but is very rarely adopted. This paper tries to answer these questions, starting from the data
on the central-eastern portion of Mediterranean North AfricaeEgypt and Libya e which are closer to the
Levantine territories. In particular, it focuses on what has recently emerged from important investigations in Egypt (Western Desert) and northwest Libya (Jebel Gharbi and Jefara plain). Through a
comparative approach combining chronology, the characteristics of plant and animal resources used,
and technology, both of these areas may help to understand the ways and paths followed in the
introduction and propagation of food production towards northeastern Africa. In an attempt to trace the
routes followed in the transfer from the Levantine towards the western regions, the paper deals also
with the main theoretical and problematic issues related to the domestication of plants and animals in
the Near East. It shows that, contrary to past claims, the domestication of plants and animals does not
seem to have taken a short time and that instead a protracted process of domestication seems to be the
more realistic model. Therefore, the search for a core area where everything must have begun seems
really complicated. Finally it reconsiders some specific comparisons between Levant and North Africa,
chronologically and geographically plausible, that have been suggested for some time. They concern the
material culture repertoires, within which the importance of the main component, lithic production, is
obvious.

The renewed interest in post-Palaeolithic societies and Neolithisation in northern Africa entails the rethinking of various issues, starting with Africa's autonomy in the Neolithisation process, with respect to the Near East. This paper aims to review this issue by discussing data emerging from new research conducted in North Africa. In particular, it illustrates how the space between hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists (the so-called 'middle ground') can be the key to answering many questions about the emergence of food production in northern Africa. It also analyses how Near Eastern domesticated animals became a part of North African cultures and focuses on the dynamics of transmission and on the reactivity of social groups, in light of both timing and mechanisms behind propagation.

The dynamics affecting coastal areas of North Africa, especially the rise of Neolithic economies, remained largely unexplored until a few years ago. There are no definitive answers for questions about how groups belonging to a very well-documented late Palaeolithic tradition developed locally, and if and how these changes resulted from outside influences that may have affected the region during the middle and late Holocene. This is especially true of the provenance and success of the main domesticates, in other words the plant (wheat, barley, pulses) and animal species (sheep/goat, cattle, pigs) which constitute the North African Neolithic complex. The obvious intrusion of the domesticates from outside has prompted various authors to seek their exotic locations, but reasons and circumstances that led to the displacement of groups were rarely discussed in trying to reconstruct modalities and routes of diffusion. To understand and study these problems, a trans-regional perspective including North Africa and the Levant seems necessary, but is very rarely adopted. This paper tries to answer these questions, starting from the data on the central-eastern portion of Mediterranean North AfricaeEgypt and Libya e which are closer to the Levantine territories. In particular, it focuses on what has recently emerged from important investigations in Egypt (Western Desert) and northwest Libya (Jebel Gharbi and Jefara plain). Through a comparative approach combining chronology, the characteristics of plant and animal resources used, and technology, both of these areas may help to understand the ways and paths followed in the introduction and propagation of food production towards northeastern Africa. In an attempt to trace the routes followed in the transfer from the Levantine towards the western regions, the paper deals also with the main theoretical and problematic issues related to the domestication of plants and animals in the Near East. It shows that, contrary to past claims, the domestication of plants and animals does not seem to have taken a short time and that instead a protracted process of domestication seems to be the more realistic model. Therefore, the search for a core area where everything must have begun seems really complicated. Finally it reconsiders some specific comparisons between Levant and North Africa, chronologically and geographically plausible, that have been suggested for some time. They concern the material culture repertoires, within which the importance of the main component, lithic production, is obvious.