Il Museo di Storia Naturale dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze. Le collezioni antropologiche ed etnologiche / The Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence. The Anthropological and Ethnological Collections

This volume is dedicated to the Anthropological and Ethnological section of the Natural History Museum. First the historical journey of the collections is traced from the antique nucleus of the Medici to the foundation of the National Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, when Florence was the capitol of Italy, and the discipline of anthropology was born. The second part illustrates the multivariate collections from all over the globe. They are a precious record of the past and present biological and cultural diversity of our species opening wide horizons that rigorously connect science to the many faces of human culture, including art. The third section is dedicated to current research and opens new prospectives on the significance of ethnological and anthropological collections due to new technology and in light of a new appreciation of the museum as a living “zone of contact”

Il Museo di Storia Naturale dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze. Le collezioni antropologiche ed etnologiche / The Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence. The Anthropological and Ethnological Collections

This volume is dedicated to the Anthropological and Ethnological section of the Natural History Museum. First the historical journey of the collections is traced from the antique nucleus of the Medici to the foundation of the National Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, when Florence was the capitol of Italy, and the discipline of anthropology was born. The second part illustrates the multivariate collections from all over the globe. They are a precious record of the past and present biological and cultural diversity of our species opening wide horizons that rigorously connect science to the many faces of human culture, including art. The third section is dedicated to current research and opens new prospectives on the significance of ethnological and anthropological collections due to new technology and in light of a new appreciation of the museum as a living “zone of contact”

Humanity from African Naissance to Coming Millennia

Humanity From African Naissance to Coming Millennia arises out of the world's first Dual Congress that was held at Sun City (South Africa) in 1998 that refers to a conjoint, integrated meeting of two international scientific associations, the International Association for the Study of Human Palaeontology - IV Congress - and the International Association of Human Biologists. The volume includes 39 refereed papers covering a wide range of topics, from Human Biology, Human Evolution (Emerging Homo, Evolving Homo, Early Modern Humans), Dating, Taxonomy and Systematics, Diet, Brain Evolution, offering the most recent analyses and interpretations in different areas of evolutionary anthropology.Humanity From African Naissance to Coming Millennia arises out of the world's first Dual Congress that was held at Sun City (South Africa) in 1998 that refers to a conjoint, integrated meeting of two international scientific associations, the International Association for the Study of Human Palaeontology - IV Congress - and the International Association of Human Biologists. The volume includes 39 refereed papers covering a wide range of topics, from Human Biology, Human Evolution (Emerging Homo, Evolving Homo, Early Modern Humans), Dating, Taxonomy and Systematics, Diet, Brain Evolution, offering the most recent analyses and interpretations in different areas of evolutionary anthropology

Humanity from African Naissance to Coming Millennia

Humanity From African Naissance to Coming Millennia arises out of the world's first Dual Congress that was held at Sun City (South Africa) in 1998 that refers to a conjoint, integrated meeting of two international scientific associations, the International Association for the Study of Human Palaeontology - IV Congress - and the International Association of Human Biologists. The volume includes 39 refereed papers covering a wide range of topics, from Human Biology, Human Evolution (Emerging Homo, Evolving Homo, Early Modern Humans), Dating, Taxonomy and Systematics, Diet, Brain Evolution, offering the most recent analyses and interpretations in different areas of evolutionary anthropology

At the upper Palaeolithic – Mesolithic boundary : revision of the human remains from Riparo Fredian (Molazzana, Lucca, Italy)

Abstract: Pleistocene and early Holocene human fossils in Tuscany are very few and poorly described. Any new information is thus an important contribution to our knowledge of the peopling of this region. Here we present a revision of the human fossil remains from the Riparo Fredian, a site located in Garfagnana and first published by Boschian et al., (1995). The authors described the human remains of the site pointing out the presence of 39 isolated human teeth (19 maxillary and 20 mandibular) and “fragments of one adult humerus, of a child's femur and of a youngster’s ulna”, considered as belonging to six individuals at least. A reanalysis of the human remains indicated that several specimens were incorrectly identified. It was thus deemed important to revise the identification of each fossil and their interpretation. The revision of human remains from Riparo Fredian has led to several changes in their anatomical identification with respect to the original publications. Of the 39 teeth previously described, the analysis revealed that two of them belonged to non-human animals, and 18 were mistakenly identified. A new, correct identification is provided for each of them. Also, two human teeth not described in the original papers have been identified. The anatomical identification of the post-cranial remains has been confirmed for two out of the three specimens. The minimum number of individuals, based on the dental remains, is confirmed as at least 5, but most probably 6, although with a different allocation of teeth to individual specimens. The age at death of the six individuals has also been reassessed, indicating the presence of two infants, two young adults and two mature adults

Human deciduous teeth from the Middle Stone Age layers of Sibudu Cave (South Africa)

Abstract: In the African Pleistocene, the fossil evidence for early Homo sapiens populations is still relatively limited. Here we present two additional specimens (two deciduous teeth) recovered from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits of Sibudu Cave (KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa). We describe their morphology and metrics, using three‐dimensional models of the teeth obtained from high‐resolution micro‐CT images. The first specimen is a Ldm1 (HUM. TO 1) recovered in the BS5 layer dated 77.3 ± 2.7 ka, and associated with stone tools assigned to the “pre‐Still Bay” assemblage. The other specimen is a Rdi1 (HUM. TO 2) coming from the Pinkish Grey Sand (PGS) layer, dated 64.7±2.3 ka, and associated with a Howieson’s Poort industry. Both teeth are well preserved, with minor post mortem cracks not affecting the overall morphology, and they comprise the intact, worn crown and the remnants of the roots, naturally resorbed. A large carious lesion occupies most of the distal face and part of the occlusal surface in the Ldm1; also a chip of enamel is missing from the disto‐buccal corner. In the Rdi1 average enamel thickness and relative enamel thickness values have been measured. For both teeth, we compared mesiodistal (MD) and bucco‐lingual (BL) diameters with those of other Late Pleistocene deciduous teeth and extant Homo sapiens. The analysis has shown that the teeth are comparable in size with the other MSA specimens described in the literature

Dietary resilience among hunter-gatherers of Tierra del Fuego: Isotopic evidence in a diachronic perspective

The native groups of Patagonia have relied on a hunter-gatherer economy well after the first Europeans and North Americans reached this part of the world. The large exploitation of marine mammals (i.e., seals) by such allochthonous groups has had a strong impact on the local ecology in a way that might have forced the natives to adjust their subsistence strategies. Similarly, the introduction of new foods might have changed local diet. These are the premises of our isotopic-based analysis. There is a large set of paleonutritional investigations through isotopic analysis on Fuegians groups, however a systematic exploration of food practices across time in relation to possible pre- and post-contact changes is still lacking. In this paper we investigate dietary variation in hunter-gatherer groups of Tierra del Fuego in a diachronic perspective, through measuring the isotopic ratio of carbon (∂13C) and nitrogen (∂15N) in the bone collagen of human and a selection of terrestrial and marine animal samples. The data obtained reveal an unexpected isotopic uniformity across prehistoric and recent groups, with little variation in both carbon and nitrogen mean values, which we interpret as the possible evidence of resilience among these groups and persistence of subsistence strategies, allowing inferences on the dramatic contraction (and extinction) of Fuegian populations