Lithic artefacts from the Castagnone alluvial succession (Northern Monferrato Hills, Piedmont, NW Italy). New evidences about the Early Pleistocene human dispersal in Europe

Geo-archaeological researches on tilted floodplain sediments near the Castagnone hamlet (Northern Monferrato Hills, Piedmont, NW Italy) allowed to collect some dozens of stone artefacts from a main alluvial unit embedding Early Biharian microtine vole teeth, together with other Galerian ("postvillafranchian") macrofaunal remains. These faunal contents constrain the paleomagnetic record of the same unit into the Jaramillo Normal Subchron. The original lying for the collected artefacts has been verified by an extensive network of stratigraphic cuts throughout the Castagnone succession, and by field checking over some related surface findspots. The reported geo-contextual and cultural evidences may thus strengthen once more a human Early Pleistocene presence in Southernmost Europe. They focus also over a time span (about 1.2 - 1 m.yrs. ago) during which new Homo dispersal events out of Africa seem to occur, but fairly West to the Caucasus range.