Neolithic and Bronze Age textiles and textile tools from Northern Italy: the cases of Palù di Livenza (Pordenone) and Lucone di Polpenazze del Garda (Brescia)

Some of the earliest evidence of textile production in Northern Italy comes from an advanced stage of the Neo- lithic (5th–4th millennium BC). It is at this time that loom weights and spindle whorls become widespread on nu- merous archaeological sites. The contexts that have provided useful information are primarily located in humid areas and are often of pile-dwelling type. Recent information comes from the currently excavated site of Palù di Livenza (UD). After a decline in data during the third millennium BC, the evidence for textile production in- creases significantly with the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (2200–1600 BC), when the pile-dwelling model spreads across the region, particularly in the area around Lake Garda, where the surrounding pile-dwelling sites, datable primarily to Early Bronze Age, provide important evidence regarding the spinning and weaving of linen and other vegetable fibres. In these settlements, not only tools for textile production in clay, bone-antler and wood, but also fragments of fabrics have been found. In addition to the Trentino site of Molina di Ledro, well known for the numerous fragments of linen fabrics, the site of Lucone di Polpenazze is gaining considerable importance thanks to the new excavations underway since 2007. Various settlements have been identified in the inframorenic basin of the Lucone. To Lucone A, which was excavated from 1965 to 1971 and had already yielded various relevant materials, including numerous fragments of fabric, Lucone D has now been added, where several fragments of fabric, a spool with wound thread and various tools for spinning and weaving have been found. In this contribution, we present the preliminary results of the analysis of the textile tools, the fabric and textile fragments, as well as the thread preserved on a spool, which attests the intermediate stage of splicing at Lucone. The material will be placed in the wider context of textile production in prehistoric northern Italy.