Palaeolithic Italy
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Cristiani (eds) Cristiani & Borgia PALAEOLITHIC ITALY PALAEOLITHIC ITALY ADVANCED STUDIES ON EARLY HUMAN ADAPTATIONS IN ADVANCED STUDIES ON EARLY HUMAN ADAPTATIONS IN THE APENNINE PENINSULA THE APENNINE PENINSULA The picture of the Palaeolithic adaptations in the Italian Peninsula ITALY PALAEOLITHIC has always been coarse-grained compared to various well-researched regional hotspots in central and western Europe, as a result of historical research bias preventing the application of new research methodologies. Nonetheless, discoveries regarding Neanderthal extinction and edited by behavioural complexity, the dispersal of Anatomically Modern Humans Valentina Borgia & as well as the origin and diffusion of modern technologies and symbolic behaviour in Europe have brought Italy into focus as an ideal region for Emanuela Cristiani understanding the evolutionary development of various hominin species that inhabited the continent in the Late Pleistocene. In particular the dynamics of the earliest human peopling of Europe, the reasons and timing of Neanderthals demise and how environmental factors affected human prehistoric behaviour, rates of technological innovation and connectivity of hunter-gatherer groups in Europe. The edited volume “Palaeolithic Italy” aims to contribute to our better understanding of the previous, still open, research questions. This will be achieved by presenting the latest advances in Palaeolithic research in Italy due to the application of a variety of modern analytical methods and cutting-edge techniques when studying numerous collections of materials from both old and new excavations as well as the latest results of field research in the country. The volume is intended for the international academia, representing a key reference for all archaeologists and readers interested in Early Prehistory of the Mediterranean region. Sidestone ISBNSidestone 978-90-8890-583-4 Press ISBN: 978-90-8890-583-4 9 789088 905834 Source Reference Borgia, V. and Cristiani, E. (eds.) 2018: Palaeolithic Italy. Advanced studies on early human adaptations in the Apennine peninsula, Leiden: Sidestone Press. SIDESTONE PRESS This is a free offprint – as with all our publications the entire book is freely accessible on our website, where you can also buy a printed copy or pdf E-book. WWW.SIDESTONE.COM © 2018 Individual authors Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden www.sidestone.com Imprint: Sidestone Press Academics Lay-out & cover design: Sidestone Press Photograph cover: image concept: Valentina Borgia and Emanuela Cristiani. ISBN 978-90-8890-583-4 (softcover) ISBN 978-90-8890-584-1 (hardcover) ISBN 978-90-8890-585-8 (PDF e-book) Contents Foreword 9 Introduction 11 Valentina Borgia & Emanuela Cristiani The Italian case in the context of the first European peopling 15 Marta Arzarello Small Tools and the Palaeoloxodon - Homo interaction in the 27 Lower Palaeolithic: the contribution of use-wear analysis C. Lemorini Blade and bladelet reduction systems in the Italian Middle 37 Paleolithic. The case of Grotta del Cavallo, (Nardò – Lecce) Leonardo Carmignani & Lucia Sarti The Lower Tyrrhenian Versant: was it a techno-cultural area 59 during the Middle Palaeolithic? Evolution of the lithic industries of the Riparo del Molare sequence in the frame of Neanderthal peopling dynamics in Italy Daniele Aureli & Annamaria Ronchitelli Neanderthal mobility pattern and technological organization 95 in the Salento (Apulia, Italy) Enza Elena Spinapolice The socio-economic significance of Neanderthal shell 125 technology: a new perspective on Middle Palaeolithic adaptation to intertidal zones from disregarded tools Francesca Romagnoli The Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition interpreted through 147 the Italian human remains Stefano Benazzi From Neanderthals to Anatomically Modern Humans in 161 Liguria (Italy): the current state of knowledge Fabio Negrino & Julien Riel-Salvatore Human exploitation of avifauna during the Italian Middle and 183 Upper Paleolithic Monica Gala Ivana Fiore & Antonio Tagliacozzo Lithic raw material circulation and settlement dynamics in the 219 Upper Palaeolithic of the Venetian Prealps (NE Italy). A key-role for palaeoclimatic and landscape changes across the LGM? Stefano Bertola, Federica Fontana & Davide Visentin Laminar tools with sinuous profile from Grotta Continenza 247 (Trasacco – AQ, Italy): a specialized production from the Late Epigravettian levels Marco Serradimigni An overview of early Epigravettian techno-economic behavior 265 in northern and western Adriatic area Emanuele Cancellieri Re-colonising the Southern Alpine fringe: diachronic data on 287 the use of sheltered space in the Late Epigravettian site of Riparo Tagliente (Verona, Italy) Federica Fontana, Laura Falceri, Alessia Gajardo, Stefano Bertola, Maria Giovanna Cremona, Fabio Cavulli, Antonio Guerreschi & Davide Visentin Epigravettian osseous technology from the eastern Alpine 311 region of Italy. The case of Riparo Dalmeri (Trentino) E. Cristiani New Insights into the Paleolithic Chronology and Funerary 335 Ritual of Caverna delle Arene Candide Julien Riel-Salvatore, Claudine Gravel-Miguel, Roberto Maggi, Gabriele Martino, Stefano Rossi & Vitale Stefano Sparacello Changing mobility patterns at the Pleistocene-Holocene 357 transition: lower limb biomechanics of Italian Gravettian and Mesolithic individuals Vitale Stefano Sparacello, Sébastien Villotte, Colin N. Shaw, Federica Fontana, Elisabetta Mottes, Elisabetta Starnini, Giampaolo Dalmeri & Damiano Marchi The role of aquatic resources in ‘Italian’ hunter-gatherer 397 subsistence and diets Marcello A. Mannino & Michael P. Richards Afterword: About Italian Prehistory 427 Changing mobility patterns at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition Lower limb biomechanics of Italian Gravettian and Mesolithic individuals Vitale Stefano Sparacello1,2, Sébastien Villotte1, Colin N. Shaw3, Federica Fontana4, Elisabetta Mottes5, Elisabetta Starnini6, Giampaolo Dalmeri7& Damiano Marchi8 Abstract Evidence from archaeological and anthropological research suggest major changes in human adaptations at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary. In Western Europe, hunt- er-gatherers which had long-distance network and extremely high mobility in the Middle Upper Palaeolithic were forced into southerly refugia with the Last Glacial Maximum. During de-glaciation, Late Upper Palaeolithic human groups re-colo- nized higher latitudes and altitudes, while large coastal plains disappeared. With the Holocene, open steppe environments were replaced by forests in large portions of the continent. These changes are assumed to have impacted mobility levels in humans, which decreased in the Late Upper Palaeolithic from the extremely high levels of 1 Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, PACEA, UMR 5199, 33616 Pessac, France. E-mail: [email protected] 2 Department of Archaeology. Durham University, UK. 3 McDonald Institute, University of Cambridge, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. 4 Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Sezione di Scienze Preistoriche e Antropologiche, Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]. 5 Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Soprintendenza per i Beni Culturali, Ufficio Beni Archeologici. 6 Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere, Università di Pisa, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]. 7 MuSe Museo delle Scienze di Trento, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]. 8 Università degli Studi di Pisa, Dipartimento di Biologia, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]. in: Borgia, V. and E. Cristiani (eds.) 2018: Palaeolithic Italy. Advanced studies on early human adaptations in the Apennine peninsula, Sidestone Press Academics (Leiden), pp. 357-396. 357 the Middle Upper Palaeolithic. With the Mesolithic, a further decrease in mobility to quasi-sedentary levels has been proposed. In this chapter, we compare the Middle Upper Palaeolithic individuals from the Grimaldi Caves (Bausu da Ture and Barma Grande, Ventimiglia, Italy) and the Mesolithic individuals from the North-Eastern Alps (Mezzocorona-Borgonuovo, Mondevàl de Sora, Vatte di Zambana, Italy) with an Upper Palaeolithic European sample and modern athletes. We suggest that femo- ral biomechanical properties might be influenced by differences in bone length, and used the tibia and the fibula to make inferences about mobility levels and patterns. Experimental evidence shows that the biomechanics of the tibio-fibular complex can discriminate between sedentary controls and athletes with different locomotor patterns, in particular long distance cross-country runners and field hockey players. Results show no clear differences in biomechanical patterns between the Middle and Late Upper Palaeolithic: most individuals resemble modern runners in a multivariate setting. In addition, results suggest that the levels of mechanical strains that prehistor- ic people were subject to largely surpassed what a modern athlete could experience. Mesolithic individuals do not appear sedentary, but all of the three individuals show pathological conditions or trauma that could have affected their gait. Keywords: Mobility, lower limb biomechanics, Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic. 1. Introduction Changes in human adaptations, including biological traits, appear to have been in- fluenced by the major climatic shift at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 20,000 years BP; Clark et al. 2009). Previous studies on lower limb biomechanics recognized a general trend towards a reduction in mobility levels from the Mid Upper to the Late Upper Palaeolithic (Holt, 1999, 2003).