Rivanazzano (PV): nuovi dati dall'atelier di lavorazione della pietra levigata

The Rivanazzano Terme (PV) site is known as one of the most significant Neolithic sites in north-western Italy, thanks to the large number of worked greenstones it yielded between the 1990s and 2000s. The research conducted here has included surface surveys and test trenches, carried out by the Soprintendenza in the early 2000s, which showed the presence of faint traces of settlement, albeit without finding any inhabited structures. Petrographic and archaeological studies of the numerous greenstone artefacts revealed an unusual lithological composition and pointed to the bed of the Staffora stream as a possible source of raw material. In 2020, the University of Pavia, in the context of the research directed by Stefano Maggi in the Roman Imperial Settlement, and in collaboration with the Liceo B. Cairoli in Vigevano, carried out surface surveys in some areas with outcrops of prehistoric artefacts. This work provides an up-to-date overview of prehistoric Rivanazzano in the light of past and recent research, in order to outline a clearer view of the wider settlement area, which is considerable in size and seems to have been articulated along the course of an ancient paleo river of the modern Staffora. The preliminary study of the artefacts found during the survey also makes it possible, for the first time, to present the complete working sequence of the greenstone at Rivanazzano, which is attested from the first processing of the raw material to the finished artefact, and to make up-to-date considerations regarding the chronology of the site. Finally, thanks also to recent archaeological research in the area, it seems possible to read the Rivanazzano site in its wider context, which presents a dense and structured territorial dispersion of sites within the Early and Middle Neolithic periods, seemingly indicating the existence of a system of intensive exploitation of natural lithic resources along the banks of the streams.