Francesca Romagnoli

Preliminary abstract: The Workshop will take place in the 30th anniversary of ‘The Big Puzzle: International Symposium on Refitting Stone Artefacts’. During the last 30 years refitting has been used as a privileged methodology to reconstruct and interpret three central topics in human evolution studies: (i) the site formation processes, (ii) the technical behaviors of Paleolithic human groups, and (iii) their social organization as reflected in the spatial patterns of the archeological sites. New methods related to refits have been introduced by researchers to enlarge scientific understanding of economic and social dynamics in Middle and Late Pleistocene: analysis of faunal refits, geo-statistical analysis, and 3D modelling. The Workshop is aimed at presenting the current knowledge in refitting studies, focusing in particular on new multidisciplinary approaches. Furthermore the development of 30 years of research and updated needs in scientific research oblige today to discuss common standard to share data and facilitate international innovation. In addition to make a point on the advances in refitting studies, the Workshop will try to set for the first time common criteria for database normalization as premise for the creation of an open access repository. The main European specialists in refitting have been invited to propose and discuss innovative and shared strategies that will allow to understand Paleolithic social dynamics overcoming boundaries between research schools and national tradition of studies.