Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Uluzzian and the Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition in the Italian Mezzogiorno

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

With NSF funding and under the supervision of Dr. C. Michael Barton and Dr. Geoffrey A. Clark, Julien Riel-Salvatore will investigate the archeology of the last Neanderthals and the first modern humans in southern Italy. This region, known as the Mezzogiorno, constituted a stable, relatively isolated geographical area during the Late Pleistocene, and has yielded cave sites containing Mousterian, Uluzzian, and Aurignacian archaeological assemblages. The first two industries are thought to have been the handiwork of Neanderthals, while the Aurignacian is more recent and usually attributed to the first modern humans of the Italian peninsula. The archaeological investigation will focus on stone tool technology and economic behavior to test the proposition that the Aurignacian represented a fundamentally different adaptation than either of the earlier industries, and to highlight the unique features of the Uluzzian which was made by some of the last Neanderthals. Stone tools, the most durable and abundant facet of the archaeological record, will be studied to reconstruct land-use patterns and lithic resource utilization, and a study of the patterns of utilization of given rock outcrops will be undertaken to reconstruct the three industries' geographical and social landscapes. A comprehensive radiocarbon dating program will furnish a timeline for the arrival of the Aurignacian in the area and gauge the pace of cultural change during that period, while paleoenvironmental reconstruction based on magnetic susceptibility will test the potential correlation of this arrival with an episode of climatic deterioration. The proposed research focuses on the behavioral differences that might have given modern humans an adaptive edge over Neanderthals in an ecological refugium located in a geographical cul-de-sac between roughly 40-30,000 years ago. This work will provide fine-grained information on whether the two hominids coexisted in the Mezzogiorno at any point before the disappearance of Neanderthals and, if so, highlight the defining characteristics of the resulting interactions. By framing forager behavior in its larger ecological context, the research will lead to a better understanding of human-environment interactions during that period as well as enable the integration of data from the Mezzogiorno with those from neighboring regions. These insights will ultimately help clarify what it means to be fully human and whether the period under scrutiny attests to the gradual and piecemeal, or relatively rapid and conclusive, apparition of the indicators of behavioral modernity outside of Africa. More broadly, the project will train the author in the use of innovative analytical methods to directly compare Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer adaptations with those of their ethnographically-documented counterparts, and potentially identify extinct idiosyncratic behavioral modes not known from extant foragers. By fostering collaboration between Italian and US-based researchers, this project will also encourage scientific dialogue across different research traditions and spur the development of international collaborations. Publication in Italian and Anglo-American peer-reviewed journals will ensure diffusion of the research results to an international scientific audience, while public lectures in the US and Italy will foster an enhanced understanding of the principles of biological and behavioral evolution and of the process of scientific research in the public at large.