Research compendium for "The Protoaurignacian of Grotta La Fabbrica (Italy): New Chronometric Data and Technological Insights into an Early Upper Palaeolithic Assemblage"

This repository contains the complete dataset of the discrete and metric attributes of the lithic assemblage presented in the publication:"The Protoaurignacian of Grotta La Fabbrica (Italy): New Chronometric Data and Technological Insights into an Early Upper Palaeolithic Assemblage (under review)."Please cite this repository as: Lombardo S., Conforti C., Panzeri L., Galli A., Zanchetta G., Tozzi C., Harvati K. (2026). Research compendium for "The Protoaurignacian of Grotta La Fabbrica (Italy): New Chronometric Data and Technological Insights into an Early Upper Palaeolithic Assemblage" Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21107250AbstractThe site of Grotta La Fabbrica (Tuscany, Central Italy) represents a key record of the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Italian Peninsula, with a sequence spanning the Late Mousterian, the Uluzzian, and the subsequent Protoaurignacian. Despite its significance, its chronological and technological framework has remained only partially defined. In this paper, we present, for the first time, the Protoaurignacian assemblage in its entirety, integrating materials from earlier excavations with newly recovered and previously unpublished finds. Our aims are to: (1) provide a comprehensive description of the archaeological sequence; (2) establish a robust chronological framework for the Protoaurignacian occupation based on newly acquired Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dates; (3) provide a detailed technological, typological, and techno-economic analysis of the lithic assemblage; (4) evaluate the role of bipolar reduction method within the technological system; and (5) situate the results within the broader context of the Early Upper Palaeolithic in Europe. The new OSL dates securely place the Protoaurignacian occupations within the early Upper Palaeolithic. The techno-economic analysis identifies a coherent assemblage characterised by the preferential use of local raw materials, a diverse range of bladelet production strategies, and a structured application of bipolar percussion, reflecting technical versatility and adaptive behaviour. The presence of exogenous raw materials suggests patterns of long-distance mobility or far-reaching social networks, contributing new data to ongoing debates on the emergence, diffusion, and variability of this techno-complex across southern Europe.