Autore: wp_1882185

Ronchitelli A., Aranguren B., Boscato P., Boschin F., Capecchi G., CONDEMI S., Crezzini J., Longo L., Mannino M., Marconi E., Mariotti Lippi M., Ricci S., Revedin A., 2021 – Metodologie per la ricostruzione dell’alimentazione nel Paleolitico. Il caso studio di Grotta Paglicci (Rignano Garganico-FG), in “Preistoria del cibo. L’alimentazione nella preistoria e nella protostoria” (a cura di I. Damiani, A. Cazzella, V. Copat), Studi di Preistoria e Protostoria – 6, Firenze, 119-130.

https://cdn.torrossa.com/es/resources/an/5327251

Riassunto

A lungo è stata opinione diffusa presso la comunità scientifica che la principale risorsa alimentare dei cacciatori-raccoglitori paleolitici fosse costituita dai prodotti dell’attività venatoria e che la carne rappresentasse una componente quasi esclusiva della dieta umana. Gli studi più recenti sui resti vegetali intrappolati sulle superfici di macine e pestelli, nel tartaro dentario e nei coproliti sottolineano invece l’importanza della raccolta e dell’apporto di vegetali selvatici nell’alimentazione del Paleolitico.

Una difficoltà nella corretta ricostruzione dei regimi alimentari risiede nella necessaria integrazione di numerosi e diversificati ambiti di ricerca, quali lo studio del paleoambiente, la biochimica, l’etnologia, la paleoantropologia, l’archeozoologia, la tafonomia, applicati all’analisi di un adeguato contesto archeologico. Sono necessari infatti sia resti faunistici abbondanti che permettano, tramite la valutazione delle porzioni carnee introdotte nel sito, di quantificare l’apporto di biomassa animale nella dieta; sia il rinvenimento di resti umani per lo studio delle usure dentarie e dei residui presenti nel tartaro (granuli di amido, fitoliti) accanto all’analisi degli elementi in tracce e della composizione isotopica sul collagene osseo per individuare il consumo delle diverse risorse alimentari presenti nel territorio. Eventuali manufatti legati alla preparazione del cibo forniscono inoltre ulteriori utili informazioni.

La serie di Paglicci, e soprattutto i livelli gravettiani, con il rinvenimento di sepolture, resti umani isolati, un pestello/macinello con tracce d’uso e residui vegetali, nonché abbondanti resti faunistici, offre un’importante opportunità di ricerca sulla paleodieta, permettendo di realizzare uno studio multidisciplinare che mette a confronto i risultati dei diversi contributi scientifici e di pervenire ad una ipotesi attendibile sull’alimentazione di un gruppo umano del Paleolitico.

Abstract

 

It is usually assumed that the diet of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer communities was based almost exclusively on the consumption of meat and of other animal resources (e.g. marrow). Recent studies carried out on dental calculus, as well as on organic residues found on grindstones and pestles, have emphasized the importance of vegetal consumption during the Palaeolithic.

Collecting reliable information on the complexity of Palaeolithic is difficult, since an approach integrating several disciplines (e.g. palaeoecology, biochemistry, ethnology, palaeoantropology, archaeozoology, taphonomy) is required. Finds from sites should be abundant and diversified, since animal remains are needed to get new insights on meat and fat consumption, human teeth with dental calculi or specific wear patterns are useful to study plants consumption (starch grains, phytoliths) and preserved bone collagen allows us to conduct isotope analyses and obtain data on the ecosystem of origin of the protein consumed. Moreover, artifacts relating to food preparation, storage and consumption add additional clues on Palaeolithic diet.

The Upper Palaeolithic sequence of Grotta Paglicci, and especially the Gravettian layers, characterized by the presence of human burials and isolated remains, as well as animal remains, grindstones and pestles, represent a key site to test a multidisciplinary approach for the reconstruction of Palaeolithic diet. In this paper, the main results obtained by integrating palaeoanthropology, archaeozoology, stable isotope analysis and residue analyses are presented.

STEPANCHUK V.N., VIETROV D.O., 2021- Paglicci 24A1 and Mira II/2: Episode at the transition between the Early and Middle UP, Quaternary International, 587-588, 277–290

https://www.academia.edu/45601872

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the evidence for, and to discuss the aspects of the striking similarities that have been identified between backed bladelets recovered in two geographically distant assemblages, one found in Southern Italy (Paglicci, layer 24 horizon A1) and the other in Eastern Europe (Mira, layer II horizon 2). Both assemblages are dated to around 29–28,000 BP and are taxonomically defined as Early Upper Palaeolithic. Detailed comparison of technical and morphological data is impossible because the Eastern European site does not contain an assemblage that lends itself to statistical analysis. The backed bladelets of type PA24A1, found in Paglicci, layer 24 horizon A1-0, and Mira, layer II horizon 2, have no direct analogies in chronologically close Aurignacian and Gravettian sites, in either Southern or Eastern Europe. Taking into account the similar chronological position of the sites, separated by a distance of ca. 2,500 km, it is concluded that the significant similarity of the backed bladelets is most likely explained not by the convergence of development or by trade, but by the direct migration of a group of modern humans who manufactured such specific microliths. The Paglicci (24A 1) and Mira (II/2) industries generally belong to the Early Upper Palaeolithic, being placed chronologically at the transition between the EUP and MUP, being located morphologically and technologically between the Aurignacian and Gravettian. Despite the scarcity of data, the distinctiveness of the backed implements indicates that the sites belong to the same episode of sociocultural development. The issue of the cultural affiliation of the industry with PA24A1 type bladelets remains unanswered, and the search for analogies, either in Eastern or Southern Europe, needs to be continued.

MARCIANI G., RONCHITELLI A., ARRIGHI S., BADINO F., BORTOLINI E., BOSCATO P., BOSCHIN F., CREZZINI J., DELPIANO D., FALCUCCI A., FIGUS C., LUGLI F., OXILIA G., ROMANDINI M., RIEL-SALVATORE J., NEGRINO F., PERESANI M., SPINAPOLICE E.E., MORONI A., BENAZZI S., 2019 – Lithic techno-complexes in Italy from 50 to 39 thousand years BP: An overview of lithic technological changes across the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic boundary, Quaternary International, 551, 123-149.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618219308365

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2019.11.005

Abstract

Palaeolithic in Europe (~50-39 thousand years BP) is one of the most important tasks facing prehistoric studies.

Apart from the technological diversity generally recognised as belonging to the latter part of the Middle Palaeolithic, some assemblages showing original technological traditions (i.e. Initial Upper Palaeolithic: Bohunician, Bachokirian; so called transitional industries: Chatelperronian, Szeletian, Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician, Uluzzian; Early Upper Palaeolithic: Protoaurignacian, Early Aurignacian) first appear during this interval.

Explaining such technological changes is a crucial step in order to understand if they were the result of the arrival of new populations, the result of parallel evolution, or of long-term processes of cultural and biological exchanges.

In this debate Italy plays a pivotal role, due to its geographical position between eastern and western Mediterranean Europe as well as to it being the location of several sites showing Late Mousterian, Uluzzian and Protoaurignacian evidence distributed across the Peninsula.

Our study aims to provide a synthesis of the available lithic evidence from this key area through a review of the evidence collected from a number of reference sites. The main technical features of the Late Mousterian, the Uluzzian and the Protoaurignacian traditions are examined from a diachronic and spatial perspective.

Our overview allows the identification of major differences in the technological behaviour of these populations, making it possible to propose a number of specific working hypotheses on the basis of which further studies can be carried out.

This study presents a detailed comparative study of the whole corpus of the lithic production strategies documented during this interval, and crucial element thus emerge: 1. In the Late Mousterian tools were manufactured with great attention being paid to the production phases and with great investment in inizializing and managing core convexities; 2. In contrast, Uluzzian lithic production proceeded with less careful management of the first phases of debitage, mainly obtaining tool morphologies by retouching. 3. In the Protoaurignacian the production is carefully organized and aimed at obtaining laminar blanks (mainly bladelets) usually marginally retouched.

These data are of primary importance in order to assess the nature of the “transition” phenomenon in Italy, thus contributing to the larger debate about the disappearance of Neandertals and the arrival of early Modern Humans in Europe.

BOSCHIN F., BERNARDINI F., PILLI E., VAI S., ZANOLLI C., TAGLIACOZZO A., FICO R., FEDI M., CORNY J., DREOSSI D., LARI M., MODI A., VERGATA C., TUNIZ C., MORONI A., BOSCATO P., CARAMELLI D. & RONCHITELLI A., 2020 – The first evidence for Late Pleistocene dogs in Italy, Scientific Reports, 10 (1), 1-14.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-69940-w

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-69940-w.

Abstract

The identification of the earliest dogs is challenging because of the absence and/or mosaic pattern of morphological diagnostic features in the initial phases of the domestication process. Furthermore, the natural occurrence of some of these characters in Late Pleistocene wolf populations and the time it took from the onset of traits related to domestication to their prevalence remain indefinite. For these reasons, the spatiotemporal context of the early domestication of dogs is hotly debated.

Our combined molecular and morphological analyses of fossil canid remain from the sites of Grotta Paglicci and Grotta Romanelli, in southern Italy, attest of the presence of dogs at least 14,000 calibrated years before present. This unambiguously documents one of the earliest occurrences of domesticates in the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe and in the Mediterranean. The genetic affinity between the Palaeolithic dogs from southern Italy and contemporaneous ones found in Germany also suggest that these animals were an important common adjunct during the Late Glacial, when strong

cultural diversification occurred between the Mediterranean world and European areas north of the Alps. Additionally, aDNA analyses indicate that this Upper Palaeolithic dog lineage from Italy may have contributed to the genetic diversity of living dogs.

BOSCHIN F., 2019 – Exploitation of carnivores, lagomorphs and rodents at Grotta Paglicci during

the Epigravettian: The dawn of a new subsistence strategy?, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 26, 101871.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X19300926

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.101871

Abstract

Data about exploitation of carnivore, rodent and lagomorph taxa from the Epigravettian of Grotta Paglicci are presented in this paper. Grotta Paglicci is characterized by a long term stratigraphy, whose Epigravettian part covers, quite continuously, a time span from about 20,000 years cal. BP to about 13,500 years cal. BP. During this time, among mammals, the percentage of non-ungulate taxa increases with an abrupt change during the Final Epigravettian, and reaches a maximum of 45% of NISP at the top of the sequence. Taphonomy, carried out also by means of 3D-microscopy, clearly testifies to an anthropic accumulation of faunal remains. The increase in non-ungulate taxa doesn’t seem to be related to a climatic change. If, on the one hand, it seems to follow the decrease in mean body size of hunted ungulates, on the other hand it is clear that the contribution of small games to the diet in terms of biomass is ephemeral. This change in the exploitation of mammal resources is probably linked to other cultural phenomena, different than the necessity to catch more food.

 

LUGLI F., CIPRIANI A., CAPECCHI G., RICCI S., BOSCHIN F., BOSCATO P., IACUMIN P., BADINO F., MANNINO M.A., TALAMO S., RICHARDS M.P., BENAZZI S. and RONCHITELLI A., 2019 – Strontium and stable isotope evidence of human mobility strategies across the Last Glacial Maximum in southern Italy, Nature ecology and evolution, 3, 905-911.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0900-8

Abstract

Understanding the reason(s) behind changes in human mobility strategies through space and time is a major challenge in palaeoanthropology. Most of the time this is due to the lack of suitable temporal sequences of human skeletal specimens during critical climatic or cultural shifts. Here, we present temporal variations in the Sr isotope composition of 14 human deciduous teeth and the N and C stable isotope ratios of four human remains from the Grotta Paglicci site (Apulia, southern Italy). The specimens were recovered from the Gravettian and Epigravettian layers, across the Last Glacial Maximum, and dated between 31210–33103 and 18334–19860 yr cal bp (2σ). The two groups of individuals exhibit different 87Sr/86Sr ratios and, while the Gravettians are similar to the local macro-fauna in terms of Sr isotopic signal, the Epigravettians are shifted towards higher radiogenic Sr ratios. These data, together with stable isotopes, can be explained by the adoption of different mobility strategies between the two groups, with the Gravettians exploiting logistical mobility strategies and the Epigravettians applying residential mobility.

BOSCHIN F., BOSCATO P., BERTO C., CREZZINI J., RONCHITELLI A., 2018 –The palaeoecological meaning of macromammal remains from archaeological sites exemplified by the case study of Grotta Paglicci (Upper Palaeolithic, southern Italy), Quaternary Research, 90, 470-482.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/quaternary-research/article/abs/palaeoecological-meaning-of-macromammal-remains-from-archaeological-sites-exemplified-by-the-case-study-of-grotta-paglicci-upper-palaeolithic

https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2018.59

Abstract

Bone accumulation in Palaeolithic archaeological sites is often the result of activities carried out by hunter-gatherer groups. Cultural choices may have influenced prey representation in archaeological assemblages, distorting their palaeoecological meaning. We present a comparison between large mammal and small mammal assemblages from the Upper Palaeolithic sequence of Grotta Paglicci (Apulia, southern Italy) that extends from the Marginally Backed Bladelet Aurignacian (about 39,000 cal yr BP) to the Final Epigravettian (about 13,000 cal yr BP). At Paglicci, the high frequency of horse and ibex remains indicates open and dry environments for most of the Upper Palaeolithic. This is confirmed by the predominance of the common vole among small mammals. The alternation between horse and ibex, which takes place during the Upper Palaeolithic, however, looks to be more related to variations in hunting territories. Taxon frequencies change abruptly at 17,955–16,696 cal yr BP, with an increase in woodland-related ungulates together with micromammals, indicating a climatic evolution towards milder and more humid conditions. Results demonstrate that when the association of ungulate taxa is considered as a whole, it has a good palaeoecological signal, whilst considering taxa separately can help to better understand cultural choices of past hunter-gatherer communities.

BOSCHIN F., BOSCATO P., 2017 – Lo sfruttamento degli ungulati a Grotta Paglicci durante l’Epigravettiano Antico: il caso del livello 16a3-3, in ” Preistoria e Protostoria della Puglia” (a cura di F. Radina), Studi di Preistoria e Protostoria – 4, Firenze, 629-634.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321097746

Riassunto

In seguito alla ripresa dello studio archeozoologico dei resti epigravettiani provenienti da Grotta Paglicci (FG), vengono qui presentati i dati relativi al livello 16a3-3, riferito all’Epigravettiano Antico. Per l’intero strato sono state ottenute delle date non calibrate, comprese tra 16.970±150 e 16.690±150 BP. Il livello a3-3 è stato scelto come campione per l’abbondanza di materiali (NISP ungulati = 876). L’associazione faunistica è dominata dagli ungulati, tra i quali il più abbondante risulta essere il cavallo (41,7% dei resti), seguito dall’uro (31,3%) e dallo stambecco (10,4%).

Le ossa degli arti sono spesso frantumate in modo intenzionale per il prelievo del midollo, come testimoniato dalla morfologia delle fratture delle diafisi. I frammenti di coste e vertebre più abbondanti sono quelli riferibili ad ungulati di

piccola taglia (caprini, capriolo e cinghiale), mentre risultano più scarsi quelli riconducibili ad animali di grande taglia come il cavallo e l’uro. Questo fatto potrebbe essere ricondotto ad un trasporto parziale al sito delle carcasse più pesanti,

forse macellate direttamente sul luogo d’abbattimento. I profili di mortalità delle principali specie cacciate testimoniano

una caccia opportunistica agli individui più vulnerabili o ai branchi dai comportamenti maggiormente prevedibili.

Abstract

During last years a zooarchaeological analysis was carried out on the Epigravettian faunal remains from Grotta Paglicci

(FG, southern Italy) by the University of Siena. In this paper study of layer 16a3-3 (Early Epigravettian) is presented.

Layer 16 dates back to a time span from about 16970±150 to 16690±150 BP. The large size of the sample from cut a3-3 (ungulate NISP = 876) allowed us to carry out a complete zooarchaeological and taphonomic study supported by a solid

statistical background. Faunal composition is characterised by a predominance of ungulate remains. The most frequent species are wild horse (41,7 % of remains), auroch (31,3 %) and ibex (10,4 %), thus testifying the presence of steppe or forest steppe environments. Limb bones bear impact demages and fresh-bone fractures. The low value of FFI (Fracture Freshness Index) observed on diaphyseal fragments indicates their breaking for extracting marrow. Axial elements of large-sized species (wild horse and auroch) are very scanty when compared with the higher frequency of the same parts from small-sized ungulates (caprines, wild boar and roe deer). This pattern proofs that larger carcasses were butchered directly at the killing sites and that only selected parts were transported into the cave. Mortality profiles testify that more vulnerable individuals or groups of individuals were mainly preied upon.