Marmota marmota, the most predated species at Grotta del Clusantin. Insights from an unusual case-study in the Italian Alps

Grotta del Clusantin is a small cave at 520m altitude in the Pradis Plateau, a modest physiographic unit of the Carnic Pre-Alps set among mounts elevated at 1,200-1,400 m. The cavity contains an Epigravettian level extensively excavated in 2005 and dated at 12ka Cal 14C B.C. which records exclusive anthropic occurrences at the cave entrance, the more comfortable area than the narrow and geologically unstable inner sectors. Field investigation has not revealed evidence for supporting the same area was also used by animals.

From the field evidence and the archaeozoological study carried out on the small mammal assemblage, it results that the almost exclusively represented taxa is Marmota marmota which remains bear butchering striae usually associated to modifications due to combustion and calcination. The spatial distribution and scattering of the humanly modified marmot bones are congruent with the geometric and pedo-sedimentologic features of the anthropic unit and thus provide evidence of human exploitation. This mammal is represented by different individuals among whom cubs prevail.

Summer predation and processing of Marmota marmota adressed to retrieve food, fur and grease seem thus to have been the main activity carried out at Grotta del Clusantin. Given the palaeoecological and chronological data, this site marks one of the first phases of Epigravettian peopling the Eastern Italian Alps and provides a further, unexpected evidence, of diet broadening in the seasonal lifestyle of the Late-glacial hunter-gatherers.