Mollusc assemblage from the early Neolithic site of Isorella (BS, northern Italy) and its palaeoenvironmental significance

This paper presents the results of the study of the mollusc assemblage retrieved during the excavations carried out in 1997 at the early Neolithic site of Isorella (Po Valley, Northern Italy), during which a shallow refuse pit structure was brought to light. The water sieving of the entire deposit led to the collection of thousands of specimens of land snails, freshwater, and marine molluscs. The spatial distribution of the finds highlighted the problems related with the interpretation of the associations of molluscs retrieved from buried structures in prehistoric open-air settlements. The data allow a first assessment of early Neolithic molluscs exploitation in northern Italy, and in particular the characteristics of the Isorella environmental setting around the end of the 6th and beginning of the 5th Millennium cal BC.