Ivana Fiore

Riparo Cogola: paleo-ecological context and economy between the Epigravettian and the ancient Mesolithic The Riparo Cogola presents three different phases of occupation that can be placed from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic. Among the ungulates, red deer, roe deer, ibex and chamois are present in all three phases, wild boar only in the first two, and elk only in the Mesolithic. The carnivore most representative of all three phases is the bear, while the wolf remains refer to the first two and the Martes sp. only to the Epigravettian. Beaver has been recognised only in the intermediate phase. A Lagomorfo which, on the basis of some of the findings, could be compared to Lepus sp., is present in all the stratigraphic series. In all the various phases hunting was directed almost exclusively to caprines, in particular to ibex and, to a lesser extent, to red deer. There is no definite evidence regarding the hunting of birds or fishing activities. In fact, many of the fish and bi...

This paper presents the results of the study of the Mesolithic structures recovered during the 20082011 field seasons. These include a combustion structure and several small post-holes in SU 582, a pit (SU 638) and a hearth (SUs 641-652) with adjacent charcoal-rich area (SU 657). The structures differ in morphology and content, although all of them yielded animal bone remains, malacofauna and tortoise shells. However, the quantity of bone remains and the ratio among species as well as the fragmentation of the specimens are considerably variable. Such variables characterize the structures evidencing their different functions. Considering as a whole the remains it contained (including a wolf hemi-mandible and posterior distal limb of a badger), the pit SU 638 has been interpreted as a “ritual pit” or, in any case, a pit used in propitiatory rituals. Among the lithic industry any selection of particular tools occours in the structures. The lithic assemblage, is referable to the Undiffe...

Cremation 168 from the second half of the 8th century BCE (Pithekoussai’s necropolis, Ischia Island, Italy), better known as the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup, is widely considered as one of the most intriguing discoveries in the Mediterranean Pre-Classic archaeology. A drinking cup, from which the Tomb’s name derives, bears one of the earliest surviving examples of written Greek, representing the oldest Homeric poetry ever recovered. According to previous osteological analyses, the Cup is associated with the cremated remains of a juvenile, aged approximately 10–14 years at death. Since then, a vast body of literature has attempted to explain the unique association between the exceptionality of the grave good complex, the symposiac and erotic evocation of the Nestor’s Cup inscription with the young age of the individual buried with it. This paper reconsiders previous assessments of the remains by combining gross morphology with qualitative histology and histomorphometric analyses of the burnt bone fragments. This work reveals the commingled nature of the bone assemblage, identifying for the first time, more than one human individual mixed with faunal remains. These outcomes dramatically change previous reconstructions of the cremation deposit, rewriting the answer to the question: who was buried with Nestor’s Cup?.

Dogs were the first domestic animal, but little is known about their population history and to what extent it was linked to humans. We sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes and found that all dogs share a common ancestry distinct from present-day wolves, with limited gene flow from wolves since domestication but substantial dog-to-wolf gene flow. By 11,000 years ago, at least five major ancestry lineages had diversified, demonstrating a deep genetic history of dogs during the Paleolithic. Coanalysis with human genomes reveals aspects of dog population history that mirror humans, including Levant-related ancestry in Africa and early agricultural Europe. Other aspects differ, including the impacts of steppe pastoralist expansions in West and East Eurasia and a near-complete turnover of Neolithic European dog ancestry.

Abstract Grotta di Castelcivita (Campania, Southern Italy) is a cave-site containing a key archaeological sequence for the study of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in Southern Italy. A Late Mousterian occupation, whose modelled dates span from 47.6 to 41.1 ka cal BP, is followed by layers bearing evidence of the Uluzzian techno-complex, which underlie an articulated Protoaurignacian sequence. The prehistoric deposit is sealed by volcanic sediments attributed to the Campanian Ignimbrite (dated to 39.85 ± 0.14 ka BP), which represent a terminus ante quem for the Palaeolithic occupation of the cave. We present here the study of the avifauna collected during the excavations carried out at Castelcivita by the University of Siena in the years 1975–88. The examined sample is composed of 631 specimens, out of which 486 have been identified according to species, genus, family or order. Bird remains belong to 36 species and at least to 175 individuals. In the Late Mousterian the abundance of species adapted to open environments indicates a cool-temperate climate; water birds, and wood and forest birds are present as well. During the Uluzzian a shift towards colder climatic conditions is testified by the increase in steppe grassland species. In the Protoaurignacian the presence of birds of open and dry environments is more marked, even if climate seems to shift toward milder conditions at the end of this phase. Taphonomic analyses have provided significant evidence for the exploitation of birds by humans across the whole sequence. Clues of human activity on bird remains are attested both in the Mousterian and, more rarely, in the Protoaurignacian by traces, possibly indicating the intentional removal of feathers (in the Mousterian) and other kinds of carcass manipulation. The Uluzzian sample is the richest in human modifications. Some of them are related to an interest for feathers (on Pyrrhocorax graculus, Falco subbuteo and an Accipitriformes of large size). Other modifications (fresh bone fractures, burnt bones, peeling, arrachement) testify to carcass treatments of Galliformes, Anseriformes, Columbiformes, Charadriiformes and Passeriformes. In the Protoaurignacian traces due to anthropogenic activity are rare and there is an increase in bone modifications caused by carnivores. Results allow us to assume that at Castelcivita humans consistently hunted birds for several purposes and exploited (especially during the Uluzzian) some species to acquire an exclusive and ethnographically well-documented resource such as feathers.

ABSTRACT Archaeologists investigating Middle Bronze to Early Iron Age periods (1600–900 b.c.) in southern Italy often explore linkages between emerging inequality and foreign trade connections, establishing a coupled trope of “change emerges from external forces” and “waiting for civilization to arrive”. Based on excavations at the Recent/Final Bronze and Early Iron Ages (RFBA/IA, 1200–900 b.c.) site of Sant’Aniceto in Calabria, we offer an alternative narrative in which hierarchy and institutionalized inequality held little sway in this community. By employing a building biography approach, we examine the variety of ways people sustain their communities through the creation and value of difference (e.g., age, knowledge, or skill) that characterize daily life, even when political hierarchy is absent. Our research at Sant’Aniceto centers on understanding the locally-grounded experiences and lives of people by approaching social difference through the lens of the materialities of everyday life.

Fossil hominids often processed material held between their upper and lower teeth. Pulling with one hand and cutting with the other, they occasionally left impact cut marks on the lip (labial) surface of their incisors and canines. From these actions, it possible to determine the dominant hand used. The frequency of these oblique striations in an array of fossil hominins documents the typically modern pattern of 9 right- to 1 left-hander. This ratio among living Homo sapiens differs from that among chimpanzees and bonobos and more distant primate relatives. Together, all studies of living people affirm that dominant right-handedness is a uniquely modern human trait. The same pattern extends deep into our past. Thus far, the majority of inferred right-handed fossils come from Europe, but a single maxilla from a Homo habilis, OH-65, shows a predominance of right oblique scratches, thus extending right-handedness into the early Pleistocene of Africa. Other studies show right-handedness...

Labial striations on the anterior teeth have been documented in numerous European pre-Neandertal and Neandertal fossils and serve as evidence for handedness. OH-65, dated at 1.8 mya, shows a concentration of oblique striations on, especially, the left I(1) and right I(1), I(2) and C(1), which signal that it was right-handed. From these patterns we contend that OH-65 was habitually using the right hand, over the left, in manipulating objects during some kind of oral processing. In living humans right-handedness is generally correlated with brain lateralization, although the strength of the association is questioned by some. We propose that as more specimens are found, right-handedness, as seen in living Homo, will most probably be typical of these early hominins.

Abstract The avifaunal assemblage from unit A9 of Grotta di Fumane provides clear evidence of the human consumption of birds and contributes to an understanding of the role of avifaunal resources in the subsistence strategies of Middle Palaeolithic hominids. In the course of these analyses, some new species of birds were identified along with the most common species already recorded in other cultural layers of Fumane. The exploitation of these resources is testified by taphonomic indicators, which are recognized on 6.5% of the total assemblage, and by a non-random spatial relationship among the bone elements, the morphology of the cave and the hearths. Further, evidence for the exploitation of feathers from various raptors and other birds backdates, although by a few millennia, the acquisition of valuable elements of avian plumage, strengthening the growing body of data that demonstrates the appearance of modern behavior in extinct autochthonous populations of Europe well before the immigration of modern humans.

A-In the southern French Massif Central and on its southeastern border but at different altitudes, open-air sites, rock-shelters and caves have yielded artefacts ranging from isolated finds to abundant series that date from MIS 9 to at least MIS 3, representing Lower Palaeolithic (sensu Acheulean bifacial production) and diverse Middle Palaeolithic facies. From the upstream part of the gorges of the Allier and Loire Rivers to the Chassezac and Ardèche Rivers surveys, excavations and detailed analyses of the material from these sites offer data on subsistence behaviours including among others raw material acquisition, lithic reduction sequences, hunted species and carcass treatment. This information has been gathered during a Collective Research Program (PCR Espaces et subsistance au Paléolithique moyen dans le sud du Massif central) and enables discussion of the mobility of human groups, the size of the territory they occupied, duration of site occupation, landscape cognition and re...

Fieldwork performed during the last 15 years in various Early Pleistocene East African sites has significantly enlarged the fossil record of Homo erectus sensu lato (s.l.). Additional evidence comes from the Danakil Depression of Eritrea, where over 200 late Early to early Middle Pleistocene sites have been identified within a w1000 m-thick sedimentary succession outcropping in the Dandiero Rift Basin, near Buia. Along with an adult cranium (UA 31), which displays a blend of H. erectus-like and derived morphoarchitectural features and three pelvic remains, two isolated permanent incisors (UA 222 and UA 369) have also been recovered from the 1 Ma (millions of years ago) Homo-bearing outcrop of Uadi Aalad. Since 2010, our surveys have expanded to the nearby (4.7 km) site of Mulhuli-Amo (MA). This is a fossiliferous area that has been preliminarily surveyed because of its exceptional concentration of Acheulean stone tools. So far, the site has yielded 10 human remains, including the un...

The site of La Polledrara di Cecanibbio (Rome, Central Italy) clearly documents a close connection between elephant remains and the subsistence strategies of human beings. A carcass of a straight-tusked elephant was recently discovered in sediments that represent the edge of a former swampy area. Some limbs are still in anatomical connection and the skeleton is associated with a lithic industry that, according to taphonomic data, was produced in situ. The spatial distribution of elephant bones, exceptionally well preserved because of the characteristics of the sediment, allows hypothesizing the dynamics of death and burial. The almost complete articulated skeleton lies gently bent on its left side, though the anterior and posterior limbs maintain a nearly standing position. The forelimbs are pointing slightly downward. The left hind limb is stretched, while the knee of the right one is bent downward with the foot sole facing up. The anatomical connection of the bones association exc...

In the southern French Massif Central and on its southeastern border but at different altitudes, open-air sites, rock-shelters and caves have yielded artefacts ranging from isolated finds to abundant series that date from MIS 9 to at least MIS 3, representing Lower Palaeolithic (sensu Acheulean bifacial production) and diverse Middle Palaeolithic facies. From the upstream part of the gorges of the Allier and Loire Rivers to the Chassezac and Ardèche Rivers surveys, excavations and detailed analyses of the material from these sites offer data on subsistence behaviours including among others raw material acquisition, lithic reduction sequences, hunted species and carcass treatment. This information has been gathered during a Collective Research Program (PCR Espaces et subsistance au Paléolithique moyen dans le sud du Massif central) and enables discussion of the mobility of human groups, the size of the territory they occupied, duration of site occupation, landscape cognition and reso...

Seven Vindija (Croatia) Neandertal teeth, dated about 32,000 years ago, were analyzed to determine patterning of scratches on the anterior teeth. Oblique scratches exclusively on the labial faces of incisors and canines represent a distinctive pattern, characteristic of hand directed, non-masticatory activities. At Vindija and elsewhere these scratches reveal activities, which were performed primarily with the right hand. The late Neandertals from Vindija, combined with other studies, show that European Neandertals were predominately right-handed with a ratio 15:2 (88.2%), a frequency similar to living people. Studies of teeth from Atapuerca extend this modern ratio to more than 500,000 years ago and increase the frequency of right- handers in the European fossil record to almost 94%. Species-wide, preferential right-handedness is a defining feature of modern Homo sapiens, tied to brain laterality and language with the 9:1 ratio of right- to left- handers - a reflection of the link ...

A-In the southern French Massif Central and on its southeastern border but at different altitudes, open-air sites, rock-shelters and caves have yielded artefacts ranging from isolated finds to abundant series that date from MIS 9 to at least MIS 3, representing Lower Palaeolithic (sensu Acheulean bifacial production) and diverse Middle Palaeolithic facies. From the upstream part of the gorges of the Allier and Loire Rivers to the Chassezac and Ardèche Rivers surveys, excavations and detailed analyses of the material from these sites offer data on subsistence behaviours including among others raw material acquisition, lithic reduction sequences, hunted species and carcass treatment. This information has been gathered during a Collective Research Program (PCR Espaces et subsistance au Paléolithique moyen dans le sud du Massif central) and enables discussion of the mobility of human groups, the size of the territory they occupied, duration of site occupation, landscape cognition and re...