Earliest Italy: An Overview of the Italian Paleolithic and Mesolithic

The richness [and environmental diversity] of the Italian Paleolithic ha[ve] never been doubted; . . . [what] instead has been lacking is a study that truly puts the richness and the diversity together. Now we have, in this magnificent overview by Margherita Mussi, the marriage of Paleolithic data with the detail of the paleoenvironmental framework. ... The value of this book as a meticulous and comprehensive survey of all the pre-Neolithic archaeology of one country will establish its place in the Paleolithic canon.
From the Foreword by Clive Gamble, University of Southampton. Most publications on the prehistory of Italy are written in Italian and are not readily available to the international archaeological community. Designed for an audience of English-speaking readers, this book aims to synthesize more than 600,000 years of Italian prehistory -- beginning with the Lower Paleolithic and ending with the last hunter-gatherers of the early Holocene -- presented with full reference to the original sources and within the context of ongoing debates in European and world prehistory. The author treats such issues as the development of social structure, the rise and fall of specific cultural traditions, climatic change, modifications of the landscape, fauna and flora, and environmental adaptation and exploitation and includes detailed descriptions of the most important sites.