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Recent advances in the functional study of stone technology have highlighted how, since the early Paleolithic, non-flaked stone tools were employed in a wide range of tasks, from food processing to craft activities. Non-flaked tools are documented within the stone assemblages of various Mesolithic sites of Italy. However, these tools are still poorly known and no analysis was ever conducted for investigating their use. In this study, we present the results of the functional study performed on Mesolithic non-flaked stone artefacts from Pradestel and Romagnano Loc III, two sites located in the Adige Valley of the Eastern Alpine region of Italy. This area yielded some of the best-known Mesolithic record in Europe, and significant evidence of forager lifeways between the second half of the 10th millennium cal BC and the beginning of the 6th millennium cal BC. Through the application of qualitative and quantitative functional analyses we were able to interpret residues and use wear from the processing of plant and animal materials, finally assessing the activities performed with non-flaked stones at both sites. Our data provide the first direct evidence of the role played by little modified pebbles in the daily life of the Mesolithic foragers of the Italian Eastern Alpine region, so far assumed only through indirect evidence.

The (re-)appearance of harpoon technology during the Mesolithic in the southern Dinaric Alps is discussed by presenting the results of contextual, technological and use-wear analyses on the sample of 36 osseous harpoon specimens recovered in Mesolithic and Early Neolithic levels of the rockshelter of Odmut in western Montenegro. The assemblage of harpoons from this site is unique in Balkan prehistory, as there is currently limited evidence for the use of barbed weaponry prior to the regional Late Mesolithic. Technological and functional data related to the introduction of harpoon technology at Odmut and the southern Dinaric Alps are discussed against the background of the appearance of harpoons in the Alpine regions of Switzerland, Italy, and the northern Adriatic. Reasons and mechanisms that might have fostered the spread of harpoons in the circum-Adriatic region and a late use of harpoon technology in Montenegro are discussed.

The eastern Alpine region of Italy represents a well-known area with regards to the study of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene forager adaptations in the whole peninsula. Caves, shelters and open-air sites, which are numerous in this region, have yielded traces of human re-peopling from mountaineous environments since the Late Glacial and until the Early Holocene. However, the archaeological record of the region lacks evidence about long lasting forager occupations. Exceptionally for the eastern Alpine sector, Riparo Biarzo (Natisone Valley, Julian Prealps) has yielded important evidence of continuous forager frequentation from Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene. The authors discuss the results of the analyses of animal remains and shell ornaments recovered in the Late Epigravettian and Mesolithic units of the site and their significance for understanding continuity and changes in the subsistence and symbolic strategies during these periods in the region. Archaeological data indicate an abundance of wild boar remains during both the Late Pleistocene and the Early Holocene at Biarzo, which makes hunting strategies at this site unique with regards to other contemporary contexts of the eastern Alpine region. Also, modalities of selection, production and use of ornaments in the same periods reveal the existence of established exchange networks, mobility strategies and connectivity between the eastern Alpine and the North Adriatic regions during the Late Epigravettian and throughout the Mesolithic.