1. Direct evidence that late Neanderthal occupation precedes a technological shift in southwestern Italy
- Author
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Gregorio Oxilia, Eugenio Bortolini, Giulia Marciani, Jessica Cristina Menghi Sartorio, Antonino Vazzana, Matteo Bettuzzi, Daniele Panetta, Simona Arrighi, Federica Badino, Carla Figus, Federico Lugli, Matteo Romandini, Sara Silvestrini, Rita Sorrentino, Adriana Moroni, Carlo Donadio, Maria Pia Morigi, Viviane Slon, Marcello Piperno, Sahra Talamo, Carmine Collina, Stefano Benazzi, Comune di Mondragone, Museo Civico Archeologico Biagio Greco, Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le province di Caserta e Benevento, European Research Council, Max Planck Society, Università di Bologna, Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le province di Salerno e Avellino, Oxilia, G., Bortolini, E., Marciani, G., Menghi Sartorio, J. C., Vazzana, A., Bettuzzi, M., Panetta, D., Arrighi, S., Badino, F., Figus, C., Lugli, F., Romandini, M., Silvestrini, S., Sorrentino, R., Moroni, A., Donadio, C., Morigi, M. P., Slon, V., Piperno, M., Talamo, S., Collina, C., Benazzi, S., Oxilia, G, Bortolini, E, Marciani, G, Sartorio, JCM, Vazzana, A, Bettuzzi, M, Panetta, D, Arrighi, S, Badino, F, Figus, C, Lugli, F, Romandini, M, Silvestrini, S, Sorrentino, R, Moroni, A, Donadio, C, Morigi, MP, Slon, V, Piperno, M, Talamo, S, Collina, C, Benazzi, S, Municipality of Mondragone, and Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Salerno e Avellino, Benevento e Caserta
- Subjects
deciduous human molars, Mediterranean Europe, Neanderthal, supervised learning algorithms, Uluzzian, virtual analysis ,Uluzzian ,deciduous human molars ,Mediterranean Europe ,Neanderthal ,supervised learning algorithms ,virtual analysis ,deciduous human molar ,supervised learning algorithm ,Southwestern Italy ,Technological shift ,Late Neanderthal occupation - Abstract
[Objectives] During the middle-to-upper Paleolithic transition (50,000 and 40,000¿years ago), interaction between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens varied across Europe. In southern Italy, the association between Homo sapiens fossils and non-Mousterian material culture, as well as the mode and tempo of Neanderthal demise, are still vividly debated. In this research, we focus on the study of two human teeth by using 3D geometric morphometric approaches for a reliable taxonomical attribution as well as obtaining new radiometric dates on the archeological sequence., [Material and Methods] This work presents two lower deciduous molars uncovered at Roccia San Sebastiano (Mondragone-Caserta, Italy), stratigraphically associated with Mousterian (RSS1) and Uluzzian (RSS2) artifacts. To obtain a probabilistic attribution of the two RSS teeth to each reference taxa group composed of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, we performed and compared the performance of three supervised learning algorithms (flexible discriminant analysis, multiadaptive regression splines, and random forest) on both crown and cervical outlines obtained by virtual morphometric methods. [Discussion] This site yields the most recent direct evidence for a Neanderthal presence in southern Italy and confirms a later shift to upper Paleolithic technology in southwestern Italy compared to the earliest Uluzzian evidence at Grotta del Cavallo (Puglia, Italy)., The authors are very grateful to the Municipality of Mondragone for supporting and funding the excavations. We also thank the Museo Civico Archeologico Biagio Greco, Mondragone, Caserta, Italy which provided funding, logistic support and welcomed the researcher since 1999 as well as an acknowledgement to the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Salerno e Avellino, Benevento e Caserta. V.S. acknowledges funding from the Alon Fellowship. This study received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No 724046 – SUCCESS, http://www.erc-success.eu); the radiocarbon dating was supported by the ERC-RESOLUTION grant agreement No 803147, https://site.unibo.it/resolution-erc/en);); the DNA analysis was funded by the European Research Council (grant agreement number 694707 to Svante Pääbo) and the Max Planck Society. We thank E. Essel, S. Nagel, B. Nickel, J. Richter, B. Schellbach and A. Weihmann for work in the ancient DNA lab; and M. Meyer and S. Pääbo for their input. Open Access Funding provided by Universita degli Studi di Bologna within the CRUI-CARE Agreement.
- Published
- 2022