The Neolithic to Copper Age Transition in Central Italy: A View from the Chipped Stone Artefacts of Fossacesia (CH, Abruzzo)

The study of transition periods has always attracted the attention of researchers. The passage from Neolithic to Copper Age is a widely debated issue. Numerous interpretative models are developed to interpret the social transformation occurred in the European communities starting from the V millennium B.C. For the Italian peninsula, the progress in the studies allows a constant update of the cultural and chronological framework in which these changes took place. The transition seems to have gradually occurred. Several sites at the end of Neolithic, in various cultural and material aspects, show trends that will characterize the successive Copper Age. In this essay, the late Neolithic site of Fossacesia (Abruzzi, central Italy) has been selected as a case study where it is possible to observe the development of these change from the point of view of the lithic assemblage. The site of Fossacesia, named a regional aspect of the last phase of the Neolithic in central Italy. In this site, the presence of a fragment of a copper artefact, testifies the emergence and the spread of new craftsmanship in central Italy already from the half of V millennium B.C. Data shows that villagers knew very well the neighbouring territories where to collect the necessary raw materials. The results of the technical, typological and functional analysis enabled us to reconstruct the different production sequences used to obtain the chipped stone artefacts, as well as to recognize the emergence of new specialized tools. Data coming from a multi-analytical approach provide a general view of the characteristics of the lithic assemblages of central Italy during the V Millennium B.C.