Estrazione e lavorazione della radiolarite nell’Appennino emiliano durante l’età del Rame: il sito di Ronco del Gatto (Bardi, Parma)

RADIOLARITE EXPLOITATION AND MANUFACTURING IN THE EMILIAN APENNINE DURING THE COPPER AGE: THE SITE OF RONCO DEL GATTO (BARDI, PARMA). This paper focuses mainly on the results of the more recent excavations at Ronco del Gatto, a quarry site in the Parmesan Apennine. At this site have come to light both radiolarite quarrying areas and related workshops used to finalize the productions of ogival preforms or pre-manufactured bifaces from which to manufacture arrowheads, daggers or other instruments. Furthermore, we report new radiometric dates and anthracological information allow a better definition of the chronology and environmental context of the site. These show that, in the Ligurian-Emilian Apennine, around the middle of the Fourth Millennium BC, radiolarite quarries, aimed to a massive production of bifacial foliate artefacts, began to be exploited, at the same time as the first copper ore mines are opened. The presence of large areas of raw material extraction, for which an unusual and collective investment of forces is evident, resulted from a long-term historical process that restructured the economic, social and ideological dimensions of Late Neolithic communities. An apparent territorial fragmentation is also evidenced by a certain cultural "polyphony" combining clear influences from both Italian and non-Italian areas. Within this territory, we can highlight the phenomenon of the menhir-statues, as well as a significant separation of facies between Eastern and Western Liguria and the presence of different burial practices between the Po Valley area and the Apennine. It is as if the social structure of the last Neolithic was deconstructed and reconstructed into a new, completely changed mosaic, when renewed ideological impulses gave rise to communities that defined new symbolic expressions along with a more pronounced social hierarchization