Materials and Tools across Volcanoes: Exploitation of Georesources in Piano dei Cardoni (Ustica, Italy) during Prehistory

The paper aims at merging the first results from the analyses of the georesources exploited in the
site of Piano dei Cardoni (Ustica island, Italy) during the Neolithic phases of its occupation (MiddleLate Neolithic, 4.7-4.2 ka cal BC). Grinding tools consist of a very varied typology of local volcanic
rocks, easy to collect and available very close to the investigated site. A selection of shapes and
lithology is applied to reach the best performance of the tools. The elevated number of grinders,
pestles, mortars testify to an intense activity of food/plant processing in the site. The absence of
chert or obsidian resources on the island pushed the human communities to import such raw
materials from the Aeolian islands and probably from the north-western area of Palermo. Pumice
is collected on the same island, probably due to the local availability and its good quality. Similarly,
local clay resources are used for the manufacture of ceramics, mostly burnished and incised wares.
Ustica was therefore almost autonomous for the exploitation of resources, with volcanic rocks
readily available in abundance and with the most significant exception being chert and obsidian.
This last one probably imported and worked on the island and then moved towards North-Western
Sicily.

Barberi, F., S. Borsi, G. Ferrara and F. Innocenti (1969). Strontium isotopic composition of some recent basic
volcanites from southern Tyrrhenian sea and Sicily Channel, Contr. Mineral. And Petrol., 23, 157-172.
Barberi, F. and F. Innocenti (1980). Volcanisme Neogéne et Quaternaire. Guide a l’excursion 122-A, Soc. It. Miner. Petrol., 99-104.
Bracchitta, D. (2015). Chap. 6. The stone artefacts from the settlement at Borġ in-Nadur, in Tanasi, D. and N.C. Vella (eds.), The late prehistory of Malta: essays on Borg in-Nadur and other sites, Archaeopress Archaeology series, 115-120.
Brunelli, D., S.T. Levi, P. Fragnoli, A. Renzulli, P. Santi, E. Paganelli and M.C. Martinelli (2013). Bronze Age pottery from the Aeolian Islands: definition of temper compositional reference units by an integrated mineralogical and microchemical approach, Applied Physics A, 113, 855-863.
Cannavò, V., A. Di Renzoni, S.T. Levi and D. Brunelli (2019). Protohistoric Italian Ceramics: Towards a General
Fabrics Classification and Interpretation, Origini, 43, 209-234.
Cinque, A., L. Civetta, G. Orsi and A. Peccerillo (1988). Geology and geochemistry of the island of Ustica (Southern Tyrrhenian sea), Rend. Soc. It. Min. e Petr., 43, 987-1002.
Clarkson, C.J. (2008). Lithics in the landscape. Handbook of landscape archaeology, B. David and J. Thomas (eds.), Walnut Creek, CA, U.S.A.: Left Coast Press, 490-501.
Clement, C.R. and M.F. Cassino (2018). Landscape Domestication and Archaeology. In: C. Smith (ed.), Encyclopedia
of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham.
de Vita, S. (1993). Assetto geologico-strutturale ed evoluzione vulcanologica dell’isola di Ustica (stratigrafia,
tettonica e meccanismi eruttivi), PhD Thesis, Napoli, 162.
de Vita, S. and G. Orsi (1994). I terrazzi marini dell’isola di Ustica (Mar Tirreno Meridionale, Italia), Mem. Descr.
Carta Geol. D’It., 52, 405-406.
de Vita, S., G. Guzzetta and G. Orsi (1995). Deformational features of the Ustica volcanic area in the Southern
Tyrrhenian Sea (Italy), Terra Nova, 7, 623-629.
de Vita, S., M.A. Laurenzi, G. Orsi and M. Voltaggio (1998). Application of 40Ar/39Ar and 230Th dating methods to the chronostratigraphy of Quaternary basaltic volcanic areas: the Ustica island case history, Quaternary International, 47/48, 117-127.
de Vita, S. and F. Foresta Martin (2017). The palaeogeographic setting and the local environmental impact of the 130 ka Falconiera tuff-cone eruption (Ustica island, Italy), Ann. Geophys., 60, 2, S0224.
Di Renzoni, A., G. Ayala, D. Brunelli, S.T. Levi, S. Lugli, E. Photos Jones, A. Renzulli, and P. Santi (2016). Aiding and abetting the archaeological enquiry: geochemical work-in-progress at the site of San Vincenzo, Stromboli,
Aeolian Islands, Italy, in E., Photo-Jones et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th Symposium of the Hellenic Society for Archaeometry, British Archaeological Reports. - International Series 2780, 167-174.
Dawson, H. (2014). Mediterranean Voyages: The Archaeology of Island Colonisation and Abandonment, Routledge, New York.
Dietrich, L., J. Meister, O. Dietrich, J. Notroff, J. Kiep, J. Heeb, A. Beuger and B. Schütt (2019). Cereal processing at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey, PLoS ONE, 14, 5, e0215214.
DiNapoli, R.J., T.M. Rieth, C.P. Lipo and T.L. Hunt (2020). A model-based approach to the tempo of “collapse”: The case of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), J. Archaeological Sci., 116, 105094.
Di Vito, M.A., E. Zanella, L. Gurioli, R. Lanza, R. Sulpizio, J. Bishop, E. Tema, G. Boenzi and E. Laforgia (2009). The Afragola settlement near Vesuvius, Italy: The destruction and abandonment of a Bronze Age village revealed by archaeology, volcanology and rock-magnetism, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 277, 3–4, 408-421.
Fitzhugh B., E.W. Gjesfjeld, W.A. Brown, M.J. Hudson and J.D. Shaw (2016). Resilience and the population history of the Kuril Islands, Northwest Pacific: A study in complex human ecodynamic, Quaternary International, 419, 165-193.
Fitzpatrick, S.M., Thompson V.D., Poteate A.S., Napolitano M.F. and J.M. Erlandson (2016). Marginalization of the Margins: The Importance of Smaller Islands in Human Prehistory, The J. Island Coastal Archaeol., 11:2, 155-170.
Gliozzo, E. (2020). Ceramic technology. How to reconstruct the firing process, Archaeol. Anthropol. Sci., 12, 260.
Gurova, M., P. Andreeva, E. Stefanova, A. Aladzhova, and C. Bonsall (2021). Petrographic and geochemical analyses
of flint raw materials from Bulgaria: A reliable combination for provenance studies of archaeological flint,
Quaternary International, In Press, DOI:10.1016/j.quaint.2021.03.023
Hamon, C. (2008). Functional analysis of stone grinding and polishing tools from the earliest Neolithic of northwestern Europe, J. Archaeological Sci., 35(6), 1502-1520.
Horowitz R., and G. McCall (2019). Lithics in Sedentary Societies: Themes, Methods, and Directions. In Horowitz R. and G. McCall (Eds.), Lithic Technologies in Sedentary Societies. Louisville: University Press of Colorado, 3-35.
Horsburgh, K.A. and M.D. McCoy (2017). Dispersal, Isolation, and Interaction in the Islands of Polynesia: A Critical Review of Archaeological and Genetic Evidence, Diversity 9, 3, 37.
Hunt, A.M.W. (2016). The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Ceramic Analysis. Oxford University Press, Oxford (UK), p. 600 (ISBN: 9780199681532).
Kadowaki, S. (2021). Neolithic ground stone typology and technology at Göytepe, Edited by Yoshihiro Nishiaki and Farhad Guliyev, Göytepe Neolithic Excavations in The Middle Kura Valley, Azerbaijan, Archaeopress, 223-260.
Lemonnier, P. (1993). Introduction. In: Lemonnier, P. (Ed.), Technological Choices: transformations in material
cultures since the Neolithic. Routledge, London, 1–35.
Levi, S.T., V. Cannavò, D. Brunelli (2019). Atlas of Ceramic Fabrics 2. Italy: Southern Tyrrhenian - Neolithic-Bronze Age, Archaeopress, Oxford.
Lucarini, G. and A. Radini (2020). First direct evidence of wild plant grinding process from the Holocene Sahara: Usewear and plant micro-residue analysis on ground stone tools from the Farafra Oasis, Egypt, Quaternary International, 555, 66-84.
Mannino, G. (1979). Ustica: risultati di esplorazioni archeologiche, Sicilia Archeologica, 12, 41, 7-40.
Mannino, G. (1998). Il Neolitico nel palermitano e la nuova scoperta nell’isola di Ustica, in Quaderno del Museo
Archeologico Regionale “Antonino Salinas”, 4, 45-80.
Mannino, G. and V. Ailara (2014). Le grotte di Ustica. Centro studi e documentazione isola di Ustica, Palermo.
Mannino, G. and V. Ailara (2016). Carta Archeologica di Ustica, Centro Studi e Documentazione Isola di Ustica,
Palermo.
Martinelli, M.C., R.H. Tykot and A. Vianello (2019). Lipari (Aeolian Islands) Obsidian in the Late Neolithic. Artifacts, Supply and Function, Open Archaeology, 5, 46-64.
Mathew, A.J., A.J. Woods and C. Oliver (1991). Spots before your eyes: new comparison charts for visual percentage estimation in archaeological material. In: Middleton, A.P., Freestone, I.C., (eds.) Recent developments in ceramic petrology. British Museum Occasional Paper 81, The British Museum, London, 211–263.
Mohr, M. (2019). Forschungen auf dem Monte Iato 2018, Antike Kunst, 62, 121–134.
McLaughlin, T.R., S. Stoddart and C. Malone (2018). Island risks and the resilience of a prehistoric civilization, World Archaeology, 50, 4, 570-600.
Mentesana, R. and P. Fragnoli (2020). The role of ceramic analyses in shaping our understanding of the cultural landscapes of protohistoric Sicily and the Aeolian islands. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 30,102205.
Mercuri, A.M. (2014). Genesis and evolution of the cultural landscape in central Mediterranean: the ‘where, when and how’ through the palynological approach, Landscape Ecology, 29, 1799–1810.
Mercuri, A.M., L. Sadori and C. Blasi (2010). Editorial: Archaeobotany for cultural landscape and human impact
reconstructions, Plant Biosystems - An International Journal Dealing with all Aspects of Plant Biology, 144,
4, 860-864.
Montana, G. (2020). Ceramic raw materials: how to recognize them and locate the supply basins—mineralogy,
petrography. Archaeol. Anthropol. Sci., 12, 175.
Muntoni, I. M., E. Delluniversità, I. Allegretta, R. Terzano and G. Eramo (2021), Chert sources and Early to MiddleNeolithic exploitation in the Tavoliere (Northern Apulia, Italy), Quaternary International, In Press,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2021.01.016
Neall, V.E. (2006). Volcanic soils. Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Land use and land cover VII, 1-24.
Plieninger, T., and C. Bieling (Eds.) (2012). Resilience and the Cultural Landscape: Understanding and Managing Change in Human-Shaped Environments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Quinn, P.S. (2010). Interpreting silent artefacts: petrographic approaches to archaeological ceramics, Archaeopress, Oxford (UK), 297.
Rackham, O. (2012). Island landscapes: Some preliminary questions, J. Marine Island Cultur., 1, 2, 87-90.
Renzulli, A., P. Santi, T. Gambin, and P. Bueno Serrano (2019). Pantelleria Island as a centre of production for the Archaic Phoenician trade in basaltic millstones: New evidence recovered and sampled from a shipwreck off
Gozo (Malta) and a terrestrial site at Cádiz (Spain), J. Archaeol. Sci.: Reports, 24, 338-349.
Riede, F., G.L. Barnes, M.D. Elson, G.A. Oetelaar, K.G. Holmberg and P. Sheets (2020). Prospects and pitfalls in integrating volcanology and archaeology: A review, J. Volcanol. Geotherm. Res., 401, 106977.
Romano, R., and C. Sturiale (1971). Carta geologica dell’Isola di Ustica. Istituto internazionale di ricerche
vulcanologiche; Istituto Internazionale di vulcanologia, Catania, Italy.
Santi, P., A. Renzulli, and M. Bell III (2015). The volcanic millstones from the archaeological site of Morgantina
(Sicily): provenance and evolution of the milling techniques in the Mediterranean area, Archaeometry, 57, 5,
803-821.
Sauer, C.O. (1925). The morphology of landscape, Univ. Calif. Publ. Geogr., 2, 2, 19–53.
Spatafora, F. (2009). Ustica tra il Tirreno e la Sicilia. Storia del popolamento dell’isola dalla Preistoria all’età tardoromana. In Ampolo, C. (Ed.), Immagine e immagini della Sicilia e di altre isole del Mediterraneo antico. Vol. I, Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa, Pisa.
Spatafora, F. (2016). Tra mare e terra: la preistoria di Ustica e il Villaggio dei Faraglioni, in Cazzella, A., A., Guidi, and F., Nomi (eds.), Ubi minor… Le isole minori del Mediterraneo centrale dal Neolitico ai primi contatti
coloniali, Scienze dell’Antichità, 22, 2, 315-326.
Shackleton, N., and N.D. Opdyke (1973). Oxygen isotope and palaeomagnetic stratigraphy of Euquatorial Pacific core V28-238: oxygen isotope temperatures and ice volumes on a 10’ year and 10’ year scale, Quaternary Res.
3, 1, 39-55.
Speciale, C., N. Larosa, G. Battaglia and S. Vassallo (2019). Piano dei Cardoni, Ustica (Palermo), Notiziario Istituto di Preistoria e Protostoria, 6.2, 62-64.
Speciale C., K. Freund, V. Forgia, S. de Vita, N. Larosa, G. Battaglia, R.H. Tykot and S. Vassallo (2021a). Obsidian from the Site of Piano dei Cardoni, Ustica (Palermo, Italy): Preliminary Results on the First Occupation of the Island,
Open Archaeology, 7, 1, 273-290.
Speciale, C., N. Larosa, F. Spatafora, A.M.G. Calascibetta, G.P. Di Sansebastiano, G. Battaglia and S. Pasta (2021b). Archaeobotanical and historical insights on some steps of forest cover disruption at Ustica Island (Sicily, Italy) from prehistory until present day, Environ. Archaeol., doi:10.1080/14614103.2021.1962578.
Speciale, C., N. Larosa, A. Magrì and G. Battaglia, Piano dei Cardoni, Ustica (Palermo), Notiziario Istituto di Preistoria e Protostoria, submitted.
Van der Geest, H., J. Vellekoop, P. Kaskes, M. Sinnesael, J. Jagt, P. Degryse and P. Claeys (2021). Petrographic and geochemical fingerprinting of flints from the type-Maastrichtian (SE Netherlands and NE Belgium): implications for flint formation and provenance, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21- 2335.
Walter, R.K. and R.J. Hamilton (2014). A cultural landscape approach to community-based conservation in Solomon Islands, Ecology and Society 19, 4, 41.
Whitbread, I.K. (1995). Greek transport amphorae: a petrological and archaeological study. London: British School at Athens.
Williams, J.Ll. (1980). A Petrological Examination of The Prehistoric Pottery from the Excavations in the Castello and Diana Plain of Lipari. In Bernabò Brea, L. and M., Cavalier. (Eds), Meligunìs Lipára, IV. L’acropoli di Lipari nella preistoria. Palermo, 847-868.
Williams, J.Ll. and S.T. Levi (2008). The Ausonian Pottery of Lipari (Aeolian Islands, Sicily) - a Typological and
Petrological assessment, PPS 74, 141-170.