Il rilievo del riparo Bombrini: tecniche di fotogrammetria SFM ed analisi di densità per la gestione 3D di un contesto di scavo

This paper focuses on some spatial analyses performed on the dataset collected from the “Riparo Bombrini” in the Balzi Rossi archaeological area (Liguria, Italy). Documented during several campaigns using non-digital techniques, the excavation area has been surveyed in 2017 using a completely open source SFM photogrammetry operating chain (Python Photogrammetry Toolbox GUI for the point cloud computing and Meshlab for the mesh creation) and all the paper works relating to the positions of the findings has been digitized in a spreadsheet (LibreOffice Calc) and then imported into a GIS environment (QGIS). The positioning of all the findings in a GIS allowed us, for the first time since the beginning of the project, to start planning our postexcavation spatial analyses: the excavation area has been divided into a 10 cm squares grid and a presence/absence raster has been created (the cell value ranging from 0 to 18 findings). A second, and more appealing, approach tested has been the density analysis one: first a set of raster has been interpolated using the Nearest Neighbour algorithm for each archaeological horizon and then the KDE algorithm has been applied to the same dataset to create a second set of raster. The comparison between the two sets of raster clearly shows how the KDE algorithm (available both in ArcGIS and in QGIS) gives a more immediate visual perception of the different clusters of findings. Since the excavation is still on-going it is too early for any other analysis but the simple test of the methodology, but the ability shown to highlight any clustering of our findings is more than promising

The ‘Hidden Foods’ project: new research into the role of plant foods in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic societies of South-east Europe and Italy

The ‘Hidden Foods’ project is a new research programme aimed at reconstructing the importance of plant foods in prehistoric forager subsistence in Southern Europe, with a particular focus on Italy and the Balkans. The role of plant foods in pre-agrarian societies remains one of the major issues of world prehistory. Popular narratives still envisage ancient foragers as primarily ‘meat-eaters’, mainly as a consequence of the poor preservation of plant remains in early prehistoric contexts, and due to the employment of methods particularly focused on the contribution of animal protein to human diet (e.g. isotope analysis) (e.g. Bocherens 2009; Jones 2009; Richards 2009). Recently, new methods applied to archaeological evidence have provided a different understanding of hunter-gatherer dietary preference and interaction with the environment. Harvesting and processing might not have been the sole prerogative of agricultural societies, and plant foods seem to have played an important role amongst hunter-gatherers (e.g. Revedin et al. 2010

The Reality of Neandertal Symbolic Behavior at the Grotte du Renne, Arcy-sur-Cure, France

The question of whether symbolically mediated behavior is exclusive to modern humans or shared with anatomically archaic populations such as the Neandertals is hotly debated. At the Grotte du Renne, Arcy-sur-Cure, France, the Châtelperronian levels contain Neandertal remains and large numbers of personal ornaments, decorated bone tools and colorants, but it has been suggested that this association reflects intrusion of the symbolic artifacts from the overlying Protoaurignacian and/or of the Neandertal remains from the underlying Mousterian

An infant burial from Arma Veirana in northwestern Italy provides insights into funerary practices and female personhood in early Mesolithic Europe

The evolution and development of human mortuary behaviors is of enormous cultural significance. Here we report a richly-decorated young infant burial (AVH-1) from Arma Veirana (Liguria, northwestern Italy) that is directly dated to 10,211–9910 cal BP (95.4% probability), placing it within the early Holocene and therefore attributable to the early Mesolithic, a cultural period from which well-documented burials are exceedingly rare. Virtual dental histology, proteomics, and aDNA indicate that the infant was a 40–50 days old female. Associated artifacts indicate significant material and emotional investment in the child’s interment. The detailed biological profile of AVH-1 establishes the child as the earliest European near-neonate documented to be female. The Arma Veirana burial thus provides insight into sex/gender-based social status, funerary treatment, and the attribution of personhood to the youngest individuals among prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups and adds substantially to the scant data on mortuary practices from an important period in prehistory shortly following the end of the last Ice Age

Neandertal-Modern Human Contact in Western Eurasia: Issues of Dating, Taxonomy, and Cultural Associations

Supporting Assimilation views of Neandertal/modern human interaction, chronostratigraphic reasoning indicates that the “transitional” industries of Europe predate modern human immigration, in agreement with their association with Neandertals in the Châtelperronian at the Grotte du Renne and St.-Césaire. Supporting the Neandertals' species separateness and less developed cognition, those industries are alternatively claimed to relate to pioneer groups of modern humans; the latter would have been the true makers of the precocious instances of symbolic material culture that, under Assimilation, are assigned to the Neandertals. However, the taxonomy of the Kent's Cavern and Grotta del Cavallo dental remains is uncertain, and their poor stratigraphic context precludes dating by association. The opposite happens at the Grotte du Renne, whose stratigraphic integrity is corroborated by both taphonomy and dating. Not questioning that the Early Ahmarian is a cultural proxy for modern humans and a source for the Protoaurignacian of Europe, its claimed emergence ~46–49 ka ago at Kebara refl ects the dating of Middle Paleolithic charcoal—to be expected, because the Early Ahmarian units at the back of the cave are made up of reworked Middle Paleolithic sediments derived from the entrance. The dating of inherited material also explains the old results for the Aurignacian of Willendorf II and Geissenklösterle. At the latter, the dates on anthropically modified samples of the hunted taxa (reindeer and horse) place its Aurignacian occupations in the same time range as elsewhere in Europe, after ~40 ka ago. The hypothesis that Neandertal/modern human contact in Europe resulted in a process of assimilation in connection with the spread of the Protoaurignacian ~41.5 ka ago remains unfalsified.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Note de recherche. Thérèse Belleau, pionnière « fantomatique » de l’archéologie au Québec

Cette étude présente une biographie de Mme Thérèse Belleau, première professeure d’archéologie à l’Université de Montréal engagée en 1958, débutant par un survol de qu’on sait sur la vie et la formation académique de Mme Belleau. S’en suit une discussion de sa formation en Europe (thèse à l’École d’Anthropologie de Paris, études post-graduées à l’Université de Londres) et de son embauche à l’Université de Montréal. Divers fonds d’archive permettent de retracer son travail au Musée national du Canada (Ottawa), incluant des conférences, publications et fouilles archéologiques au site Hughson, en Ontario. L’engouement suscité par son engagement à l’Université de Montréal est souligné et le texte conclut par un aperçu de ses activités scientifiques aux États-Unis et en Australie après 1959.This study presents a biography of Mrs. Thérèse Belleau, the first archaeology professor to be hired at the Université de Montréal in 1958, beginning with an overview of what can be gleaned from scientific sources about her life and academic trajectory. This is followed by a discussion of her training in Europe (thesis at the École d’Anthropologie de Paris, post-graduate studies at the University of London) and her hiring at the Université de Montréal. Various archival sources detail her work at the National Museum of Canada (Ottawa), including conferences and archaeological excavations at the Hughson site, in Ontario. We highlight the excitement that her hiring at the Université de Montréal created, and the paper concludes with a summary of her scientific activities in the USA and Australia after 1959

Nouvelles données sur le Paléolithique et le Mésolithique de la Ligurie : des anciennes collections aux nouvelles fouilles

Le présent article est une synthèse de quelques-unes des nouvelles les plus récentes concernant le Paléolithique et le Mésolithique de la Ligurie. Les résultats des fouilles du Riparo Bombrini (Vintimille, Imperia) et de l’Arma Veirana (Erli, Savone) sont présentés, ainsi que ceux relatifs à l’étude d’autres contextes archéologiques liguriens, comme la Caverna delle Arene Candide (Finale Ligure, Savone), la Grotta della Bàsura (Toirano, Savone) et le site de Via San Francesco, à Sanremo (Imperia). De nouveaux projets de recherche sont également en cours

PRIMO INCONTRO ANNUALE DI PREISTORIA E PROTOSTORIA. Il Paleolitico e il Mesolitico in Italia: nuove ricerche e prospettive di studio

More than 40 years have passed since the last conference dedicated to the Prehistory of Liguria – the Riunione Scientifica of IIPP held in November 1973 - and more than ten since the Round Table of the XVI Congresso degli Antropologi Italiani that took place in 2005. Finally,on the 4th and 5th of February 2016,Genoa once again served as the seat of a meeting dedicated to the Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic. The call for papers of Genoa event was welcomed by numerous Italian and foreign colleagues. Over 200 colleagues participated, including European and American scholars, all of them being involved in projects focused on Italian archaeological contexts. The topics discussed spanned from the Lower Palaeolithic to the end of the Mesolithic and dealt with different issues (technology, functional analyses, zooarchaeology, physical anthropology, experimentation, etc.), highlighting the necessity to embrace an inter-disciplinary approach to our past. This meeting also underscored the liveliness of research on the Pleistocene and early Holocene of the Italian peninsula as a result of ongoing projects undertaken by different Italian universities in collaboration with foreign research institutions and with the involvement of numerous young researchers. Organising this event was possible thanks to the support of the Istituto Italiano di Preistoria e Protostoria, the funding and logistical assistance of the Dipartimento di Antichità, Filosofia, Storia (DAFIST) of the University of Genoa, represented by its president Prof. Michele Marsonet, director Prof. Franco Montanari, former director Prof. Roberto Sinigaglia, by technical office personnel (Anna Rita Calò, Marco Castoldi, Anna Vacchini) and by some of the undergraduate students in the Heritage Management program (Giulia Berruto, Silvia Caffarone, Naomi C hiampan, Chiara Dodero, Matteo Gullotto, Martina Parise, Caterina Piu, Elisa Ulmert). The event was also sponsored by the Associazione Italiana per lo Studio del Quaternario (AIQUA)