Indicatori microscopici di pascolo per ricostruzioni di paleoeconomia e paleoambiente: polline, spore di funghi coprofili e uova di parassiti

The paper reports two study cases showing integrated analyses of microscopic records (pollen, coprophilous fungi and parasites remains) which are of basic importance to reconstruct past breeding and pastoral activities in Italy. The sites are located at Piano Locce (1225 m a.s.l., Barisciano, L’Aquila) in a depression in a mountain area and in the Bradano Valley (about 150-500 m a.s.l., Basilicata) in a hilly area rich in archaeological sites. The pollen-based palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of Piano Locce provided the history of plants landscape from around 36.000 years BP. Before the Holocene, a steppe vegetation and a grassland characterized the area where wild animals freely browsed. This assumption is strongly supported by the association of spores of coprophilous fungi with intestinal parasites eggs (Dicrocoelium) and pollen clumps. The trend of coprophilous fungi and pollen assemblages including Anthropogenic Indicators shows that, after the wild animals browsing, a fairly continuous presence of domesticated animals, prevalently ovicaprines, interested the area in the Holocene. The archaeological sites of Difesa San Biagio and Altojanni in Bradano Valley showed evidences of ovicaprine-farming and cattle breeding during Hellenistic and Mediaeval periods. In particular, Cichorioideae, Chenopodiaceae and Brassicaceae pollen and spores of coprophilous fungi (such as Sordaria type, Sporormiella and Podospora type) attest the predominance of pastoral activities during the Hellenistic period at San Biagio. A greater pollen biodiversity characterizes Altojanni, where spores of the coprophilous fungi were associated with spores of fungi with a different ecology as Chaetomium and Valsaria variospora type. The environmental and microarchaeobotanical contexts are in agreement with archaeological evidences that attest the presence of domestic animals, probably cattle, maintained in this site during Middle Ages

Realising consilience: How better communication between archaeologists, historians and natural scientists can transform the study of past climate change in the Mediterranean

This paper reviews the methodological and practical issues relevant to the ways in which natural scientists, historians and archaeologists may collaborate in the study of past climatic changes in the Mediterranean basin. We begin by discussing the methodologies of these three disciplines in the context of the consilience debate, that is, attempts to unify different research methodologies that address similar problems. We demonstrate that there are a number of similarities in the fundamental methodology between history, archaeology, and the natural sciences that deal with the past ("palaeoenvironmental sciences"), due to their common interest in studying societal and environmental phenomena that no longer exist. The three research traditions, for instance, employ specific narrative structures as a means of communicating research results. We thus present and compare the narratives characteristic of each discipline; in order to engage in fruitful interdisciplinary exchange, we must first understand how each deals with the societal impacts of climatic change. In the second part of the paper, we focus our discussion on the four major practical issues that hinder communication between the three disciplines. These include terminological misunderstandings, problems relevant to project design, divergences in publication cultures, and differing views on the impact of research. Among other recommendations, we suggest that scholars from the three disciplines should aim to create a joint publication culture, which should also appeal to a wider public, both inside and outside of academia

Palaeoecological data indicates land-use changes across Europe linked to spatial heterogeneity in mortality during the Black Death pandemic

The Black Death (1347–1352 CE) is the most renowned pandemic in human history, believed by many to have killed half of Europe’s population. However, despite advances in ancient DNA research that conclusively identified the pandemic’s causative agent (bacterium Yersinia pestis), our knowledge of the Black Death remains limited, based primarily on qualitative remarks in medieval written sources available for some areas of Western Europe. Here, we remedy this situation by applying a pioneering new approach, ‘big data palaeoecology’, which, starting from palynological data, evaluates the scale of the Black Death’s mortality on a regional scale across Europe. We collected pollen data on landscape change from 261 radiocarbon-dated coring sites (lakes and wetlands) located across 19 modern-day European countries. We used two independent methods of analysis to evaluate whether the changes we see in the landscape at the time of the Black Death agree with the hypothesis that a large portion of the population, upwards of half, died within a few years in the 21 historical regions we studied. While we can confirm that the Black Death had a devastating impact in some regions, we found that it had negligible or no impact in others. These inter-regional differences in the Black Death’s mortality across Europe demonstrate the significance of cultural, ecological, economic, societal and climatic factors that mediated the dissemination and impact of the disease. The complex interplay of these factors, along with the historical ecology of plague, should be a focus of future research on historical pandemics.The authors acknowledge the following funding sources: Max Planck Independent Research Group, Palaeo-Science and History Group (A.I., A.M. and C.V.); Estonian Research Council #PRG323, PUT1173 (A.Pos., T.R., N.S. and S.V.); European Research Council #FP7 263735 (A.Bro. and A.Plu.), #MSC 655659 (A.E.); Georgetown Environmental Initiative (T.N.); Latvian Council of Science #LZP-2020/2-0060 (N.S. and N.J.); LLNL-JRNL-820941 (I.T.); NSF award #GSS-1228126 (S.M.); Polish-Swiss Research Programme #013/2010 CLIMPEAT (M.Lam.), #086/2010 CLIMPOL (A.W.); Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education #N N306 275635 (M.K.); Polish National Science Centre #2019/03/X/ST10/00849 (M.Lam.), #2015/17/B/ST10/01656 (M.Lam.), #2015/17/B/ST10/03430 (M.Sło.), #2018/31/B/ST10/02498 (M.Sło.), #N N304 319636 (A.W.); SCIEX #12.286 (K.Mar.); Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness #REDISCO-HAR2017-88035-P (J.A.L.S.); Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports #FPU16/00676 (R.L.L.); Swedish Research Council #421-2010-1570 (P.L.), #2018-01272 (F.C.L. and A.S.); Volkswagen Foundation Freigeist Fellowship Dantean Anomaly (M.B.), Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation #RTI2018-101714-B-I00 (F.A.S. and D.A.S.), OP RDE, MEYS project #CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000728 (P.P.)Peer reviewe

Prognostic indicators and outcomes of hospitalised COVID-19 patients with neurological disease: An individual patient data meta-analysis

Background Neurological COVID-19 disease has been reported widely, but published studies often lack information on neurological outcomes and prognostic risk factors. We aimed to describe the spectrum of neurological disease in hospitalised COVID-19 patients; characterise clinical outcomes; and investigate factors associated with a poor outcome. Methods We conducted an individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis of hospitalised patients with neurological COVID-19 disease, using standard case definitions. We invited authors of studies from the first pandemic wave, plus clinicians in the Global COVID-Neuro Network with unpublished data, to contribute. We analysed features associated with poor outcome (moderate to severe disability or death, 3 to 6 on the modified Rankin Scale) using multivariable models. Results We included 83 studies (31 unpublished) providing IPD for 1979 patients with COVID-19 and acute new-onset neurological disease. Encephalopathy (978 [49%] patients) and cerebrovascular events (506 [26%]) were the most common diagnoses. Respiratory and systemic symptoms preceded neurological features in 93% of patients; one third developed neurological disease after hospital admission. A poor outcome was more common in patients with cerebrovascular events (76% [95% CI 67–82]), than encephalopathy (54% [42–65]). Intensive care use was high (38% [35–41]) overall, and also greater in the cerebrovascular patients. In the cerebrovascular, but not encephalopathic patients, risk factors for poor outcome included breathlessness on admission and elevated D-dimer. Overall, 30-day mortality was 30% [27–32]. The hazard of death was comparatively lower for patients in the WHO European region. Interpretation Neurological COVID-19 disease poses a considerable burden in terms of disease outcomes and use of hospital resources from prolonged intensive care and inpatient admission; preliminary data suggest these may differ according to WHO regions and country income levels. The different risk factors for encephalopathy and stroke suggest different disease mechanisms which may be amenable to intervention, especially in those who develop neurological symptoms after hospital admission

Forensic Palynology: methods and future.

Lavori Originali / Original Articles3 A.M. Mercuri, A.TravagliniL’incontro di Roma e la Palinologia Forense in Italia / The meeting of Rome on Forensic Palynology7 D.C. MildenhallForensic palynology: an increasingly used tool in forensic science / Palinologia Forense: uno strumento dellaScienza Forense sempre più usato11 A.M. Mercuri, I. Massamba N’siala, L. OlmiPolline giallo: la palinologia applicata alle Scienze Forensi / The yellow pollen: palynology applied to ForensicSciences20 A.Travaglini, S. Silvestri, E. Mei, E. Marcelli, P. MontagnaIl Progetto: “Palinologia Forense: esperienze a Roma” / The project: “Forensic Palynology at Rome”25 M. Boi, G. Servera Vives, M. Capó Martí, L. Llorens GarcíaI cavalli e le loro qualità come campionatori pollinici / Horses as pollen trap34 M. Mariotti Lippi, A.M. MercuriPalynological analyses applied to a case of kidnapping in Italy / Indagini palinologiche applicate ad un casodi sequestro di persona39 A.Travaglini, E. MeiUn caso di omicidio per la palinologia forense / A homicide case for Forensic Palynology44 C.A. Accorsi, L. Forlani, F. Rossi, E. Del Borrello, G.Trevisan, A. CicognaniPalinologia e tossicologia in un caso di omicidio con notevole interesse forense / Forensic palynology andtoxycology in a interesting case of murder49 M. Marchesini, S. MarvelliIl contributo delle indagini palinologiche alle cause di morte di Cangrande della Scala, signore di Verona(1291-1329 d.C.) / The contribution of palynological analyses to the recognition of death-leading causes ofCangrande della Scala, master of Verona (1291-1329 a.D.

CONTRIBUTO DELLE ANALISI XILO-ANTRACOLOGICHE ALLA RICOSTRUZIONE PALEOAMBIENTALE DEL SITO GARAMANTICO DI FEHWET (LIBIA SUD- OCCIDENTALE)

Il villaggio di Fehwet \ue8 situato nella piccola oasi omonima, posta ca. 10 km a sud Ghat, in Libia sud-occidentale. Il sito archeologico \ue8 stato oggetto di scavo nel corso delle campagne 2002- 2006 della Missione Archeologica Italo-Libica diretta da Savino di Lernia e condotta da Sapienza Universit\ue0 di Roma e Dipartimento di Archeologia di Tripoli. La maggior parte dei reperti ha mostrato buono stato di conservazione. Dai dati raccolti emerge una larga predominanza di Tamarix (153 reperti-77%) che include T. tetragyna Ehrenb. (97 reperti), T. aphylla Karst. (26 reperti), e Tamarix sp. (30 reperti). Pure significativa \ue8 la presenza di Phoenix dactylifera L. (43 reperti - 22%), mentre rari sono Acacia sp. (1 reperto) e cf. Nerium oleander L. (1 reperto)

ECONOMY AND ENVIRONMENT OF THE GREEK COLONIAL SYSTEM IN SOUTHERN ITALY: POLLEN AND NPPS EVIDENCE OF GRAZING FROM THE RURAL SITE OF FATTORIA FABRIZIO (VI-IV CENT. BC; METAPONTO, BASILICATA)

This paper reports a study case showing integrated analyses of microscopic records from an archaeological site of southern Italy. Pollen and non pollen palynomorphs-NPPs were found in archaeological layers and were basic in reconstructing both the past environment and the economic activities of the site. The site, Fattoria Fabrizio, is a modest 4th-cenury BC farmhouse of the chora (rural territory) of the Greek city (polis) of Metaponto (Basilicata). Pollen analyses in addition to the study of NPPs have been particularly worthwhile for palaeoenvironmental and palaeoeconomical reconstructions of this site and others in the chora. The pollen spectra delineate an open plant landscape, with scanty woodlands and presence of local wet environments. Olea pollen is fairly well represented in all samples, suggesting that this tree was an important element of the agricultural economy of the chora. Shrubby grasslands and a well-developed maquis characterized the territory, probably as result of grazing activities by sheep and goats. Accordingly, the high percentages of Poaceae and Cichorieae pollen, together with coprophilous fungal spores (such as Sordaria type and Sporormiella type), suggest that pastoral activities were widely practiced. The low number of Cerealia pollen grains suggests that the inhabitants&rsquo; fields covered small areas or were quite far from the farmhouse. &nbsp;</p