Exploring late Paleolithic and Mesolithic diet in the Eastern Alpine region of Italy through multiple proxies

Microparticles from dental calculus disclose paleoenvironmental and palaeoecological records

Plants have always represented a key element in landscape delineation. Indeed, plant diversity, whose distribution is influenced by geographic/climatic variability, has affected both environmental and human ecology. The present contribution represents a multi-proxy study focused on the detection of starch, pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs in ancient dental calculus collected from pre-historical individuals buried at La Sassa and Pila archaeological sites (Central Italy). The collected record suggested the potential use of plant taxa by the people living in Central Italy during the Copper-Middle Bronze Age and expanded the body of evidence reported by previous palynological and palaeoecological studies. The application of a microscopic approach provided information about domesticated crops and/or gathered wild plants and inferred considerations on ancient environments, water sources, and past health and diseases. Moreover, the research supplied data to define the natural resources (e.g., C4-plant intake) and the social use of the space during that period. Another important aspect was the finding of plant clues referable to woody habitats, characterised by broad-leaved deciduous taxa and generally indicative of a warm-temperate climate and grassy vegetation. Other unusual records (e.g., diatoms, brachysclereids) participated in defining the prehistoric ecological framework. Thus, this work provides an overview on the potential of the human dental calculus analysis to delineate some features of the ancient plant ecology and biodiversity.

Multiproxy bioarchaeological data reveals interplay between growth, diet and population dynamics across the transition to farming in the central Mediterranean

The transition to farming brought on a series of important changes in human society, lifestyle, diet and health. The human bioarchaeology of the agricultural transition has received much attention, however, relatively few studies have directly tested the interrelationship between individual lifestyle factors and their implications for understanding life history changes among the first farmers. We investigate the interplay between skeletal growth, diet, physical activity and population size across 30,000 years in the central Mediterranean through a 'big data' cross-analysis of osteological data related to stature (n = 361), body mass (n = 334) and long bone biomechanics (n = 481), carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotopes (n = 1986 human, n = 475 animal) and radiocarbon dates (n = 5263). We present the observed trends on a continuous timescale in order to avoid grouping our data into assigned 'time periods', thus achieving greater resolution and chronological control over our analysis. The results identify important changes in human life history strategies associated with the first farmers, but also highlight the long-term nature of these trends in the millennia either side of the agricultural transition. The integration of these different data is an important step towards disentangling the complex relationship between demography, diet and health, and reconstruct life history changes within a southern European context. We believe the methodological approach adopted here has broader global implications for bioarchaeological studies of human adaptation more generally.

Human remains from Arma di Nasino (Liguria) provide novel insights into the paleoecology of early Holocene foragers in northwestern Italy

We report the discovery and analysis of new Mesolithic human remains-dated to ca. 10,200-9000 cal. BP-from Arma di Nasino in Liguria, northwestern Italy, an area rich in Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic attestations, but for which little information on Early Holocene occupation was available. The multi-proxy isotopic profile of the two individuals reveals that-despite the proximity of the site to the Mediterranean seashore and the use of shellfish as decorative elements in burials-the ecology of these foragers was based on the exploitation of high-altitude resources, presumably in the nearby western Alps. This constitutes the first direct evidence in northwestern Italy of a significant ecological shift towards higher altitudes following deglaciation, especially when compared to isotopic data of the Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers from the nearby site of Arene Candide Cave, who exploited terrestrial resources nearer to the coast and at lower altitudes. While the biochemistry of Nasino's skeletal assemblage revealed new details on Early Holocene lifeways in the area, the osteobiography of one individual offers glimpses into the life experience of a specific female forager, depicting a scenario of early skeletal trauma, developmental disturbances, long-term impairments, and resilience amongst the last European hunter-gatherers.

Neolithic dental calculi provide evidence for environmental proxies and consumption of wild edible fruits and herbs in central Apennines

Looking for a biological fingerprint relative to new aspects of the relationship between humans and natural environment during prehistoric times is challenging. Although many issues still need to be addressed in terms of authentication and identification, microparticles hidden in ancient dental calculus can provide interesting information for bridging this gap of knowledge. Here, we show evidence about the role of edible plants for the early Neolithic individuals in the central Apennines of the Italian peninsula and relative cultural landscape. Dental calculi from human and animal specimens exhumed at Grotta Mora Cavorso (Lazio), one of the largest prehistoric burial deposits, have returned an archaeobotanical record made up of several types of palaeoecological proxies. The organic fraction of this matrix was investigated by a multidisciplinary approach, whose novelty consisted in the application of next generation sequencing to ancient plant DNA fragments, specifically codifying for maturase K barcode gene. Panicoideae and Triticeae starches, together with genetic indicators of Rosaceae fruits, figs, and Lamiaceae herbs, suggested subsistence practices most likely still based on wild plant resources. On the other hand, pollen, and non-pollen palynomorphs allowed us to outline a general vegetational framework dominated by woodland patches alternated with meadows, where semi-permanent settlements could have been established.

Dental calculus: A repository of bioinformation indicating diseases and human evolution

Dental calculus has long been considered as a vital contributing factor of periodontal diseases. Our review focuses on the role of dental calculus as a repository and discusses the bioinformation recently reported to be concealed in dental calculus from three perspectives: time-varying oral condition, systemic diseases, and anthropology at various times. Molecular information representing an individual's contemporary oral health status could be detected in dental calculus. Additionally, pathogenic factors of systemic diseases were found in dental calculus, including bacteria, viruses and toxic heavy metals. Thus, dental calculus has been proposed to play a role as biological data storage for detection of molecular markers of latent health concerns. Through the study of environmental debris in dental calculus, an overview of an individual's historical dietary habits and information about the environment, individual behaviors and social culture changes can be unveiled. This review summarizes a new role of dental calculus as a repository of bioinformation, with potential use in the prediction of oral diseases, systemic diseases, and even anthropology.

Genomic ancestry, diet and microbiomes of Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers from San Teodoro cave

Recent improvements in the analysis of ancient biomolecules from human remains and associated dental calculus have provided new insights into the prehistoric diet and genetic diversity of our species. Here we present a multi-omics study, integrating metagenomic and proteomic analyses of dental calculus, and human ancient DNA analysis of the petrous bones of two post-Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) individuals from San Teodoro cave (Italy), to reconstruct their lifestyle and the post-LGM resettlement of Europe. Our analyses show genetic homogeneity in Sicily during the Palaeolithic, representing a hitherto unknown Italian genetic lineage within the previously identified Villabruna cluster. We argue that this lineage took refuge in Italy during the LGM, followed by a subsequent spread to central-western Europe. Analysis of dental calculus showed a diet rich in animal proteins which is also reflected on the oral microbiome composition. Our results demonstrate the power of this approach in the study of prehistoric humans and will enable future research to reach a more holistic understanding of the population dynamics and ecology.

Direct evidence that late Neanderthal occupation precedes a technological shift in southwestern Italy

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.

RESULTS

We show that RSS1, whose Mousterian context appears more recent than 44,800-44,230 cal BP, can be attributed to a Neanderthal, while RSS2, found in an Uluzzian context that we dated to 42,640-42,380 cal BP, is attributed to Homo sapiens.

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).

Tracing the mobility of a Late Epigravettian (~ 13 ka) male infant from Grotte di Pradis (Northeastern Italian Prealps) at high-temporal resolution

We present the results of a multi-disciplinary investigation on a deciduous human tooth (Pradis 1), recently recovered from the Epigravettian layers of the Grotte di Pradis archaeological site (Northeastern Italian Prealps). Pradis 1 is an exfoliated deciduous molar (Rdm₂), lost during life by an 11–12-year-old child. A direct radiocarbon date provided an age of 13,088–12,897 cal BP (95% probability, IntCal20). Amelogenin peptides extracted from tooth enamel and analysed through LC–MS/MS indicate that Pradis 1 likely belonged to a male. Time-resolved ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr analyses by laser ablation mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICPMS), combined with dental histology, were able to resolve his movements during the first year of life (i.e. the enamel mineralization interval). Specifically, the Sr isotope ratio of the tooth enamel differs from the local baseline value, suggesting that the child likely spent his first year of life far from Grotte di Pradis. Sr isotopes are also suggestive of a cyclical/seasonal mobility pattern exploited by the Epigravettian human group. The exploitation of Grotte di Pradis on a seasonal, i.e. summer, basis is also indicated by the faunal spectra. Indeed, the nearly 100% occurrence of marmot remains in the entire archaeozoological collection indicates the use of Pradis as a specialized marmot hunting or butchering site. This work represents the first direct assessment of sub-annual movements observed in an Epigravettian hunter-gatherer group from Northern Italy.

The cranial biomechanics and feeding performance of Homo floresiensis

Homo floresiensis is a small-bodied hominin from Flores, Indonesia, that exhibits plesiomorphic dentognathic features, including large premolars and a robust mandible, aspects of which have been considered australopith-like. However, relative to australopith species, H. floresiensis exhibits reduced molar size and a cranium with diminutive midfacial dimensions similar to those of later Homo, suggesting a reduction in the frequency of forceful biting behaviours. Our study uses finite-element analysis to examine the feeding biomechanics of the H. floresiensis cranium. We simulate premolar (P³) and molar (M²) biting in a finite-element model (FEM) of the H. floresiensis holotype cranium (LB1) and compare the mechanical results with FEMs of chimpanzees, modern humans and a sample of australopiths (MH1, Sts 5, OH5). With few exceptions, strain magnitudes in LB1 resemble elevated levels observed in modern Homo. Our analysis of LB1 suggests that H. floresiensis could produce bite forces with high mechanical efficiency, but was subject to tensile jaw joint reaction forces during molar biting, which perhaps constrained maximum postcanine bite force production. The inferred feeding biomechanics of H. floresiensis closely resemble modern humans, suggesting that this pattern may have been present in the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens and H. floresiensis.

Early Alpine occupation backdates westward human migration in Late Glacial Europe

Before the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ∼16.5 ka ago)¹ set in motion major shifts in human culture and population structure,² a consistent change in lithic technology, material culture, settlement pattern, and adaptive strategies is recorded in Southern Europe at ∼18-17 ka ago. In this time frame, the landscape of Northeastern Italy changed considerably, and the retreat of glaciers allowed hunter-gatherers to gradually recolonize the Alps.^3-6 Change within this renewed cultural frame (i.e., during the Late Epigravettian phase) is currently associated with migrations favored by warmer climate linked to the Bølling-Allerød onset (14.7 ka ago),^7-11 which replaced earlier genetic lineages with ancestry found in an individual who lived ∼14 ka ago at Riparo Villabruna, Italy, and shared among different contexts (Villabruna Cluster).⁹ Nevertheless, these dynamics and their chronology are still far from being disentangled due to fragmentary evidence for long-distance interactions across Europe.¹² Here, we generate new genomic data from a human mandible uncovered at Riparo Tagliente (Veneto, Italy), which we directly dated to 16,980-16,510 cal BP (2σ). This individual, affected by focal osseous dysplasia, is genetically affine to the Villabruna Cluster. Our results therefore backdate by at least 3 ka the diffusion in Southern Europe of a genetic component linked to Balkan/Anatolian refugia, previously believed to have spread during the later Bølling/Allerød event. In light of the new genetic evidence, this population replacement chronologically coincides with the very emergence of major cultural transitions in Southern and Western Europe.

Multipronged dental analyses reveal dietary differences in last foragers and first farmers at Grotta Continenza, central Italy (15,500-7000 BP)

This paper provides results from a suite of analyses made on human dental material from the Late Palaeolithic to Neolithic strata of the cave site of Grotta Continenza situated in the Fucino Basin of the Abruzzo region of central Italy. The available human remains from this site provide a unique possibility to study ways in which forager versus farmer lifeways affected human odonto-skeletal remains. The main aim of our study is to understand palaeodietary patterns and their changes over time as reflected in teeth. These analyses involve a review of metrics and oral pathologies, micro-fossils preserved in the mineralized dental plaque, macrowear, and buccal microwear. Our results suggest that these complementary approaches support the assumption about a critical change in dental conditions and status with the introduction of Neolithic foodstuff and habits. However, we warn that different methodologies applied here provide data at different scales of resolution for detecting such changes and a multipronged approach to the study of dental collections is needed for a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of diachronic changes.

Exploring late Paleolithic and Mesolithic diet in the Eastern Alpine region of Italy through multiple proxies

Objectives

The analysis of prehistoric human dietary habits is key for understanding the effects of paleoenvironmental changes on the evolution of cultural and social human behaviors. In this study, we compare results from zooarchaeological, stable isotope and dental calculus analyses as well as lower second molar macrowear patterns to gain a broader understanding of the diet of three individuals who lived between the end of the Late Pleistocene and the Early Holocene (ca., 17–8 ky cal BP) in the Eastern Alpine region of Italy.

Materials and methods

We analyze individuals buried at the sites of Riparo Tagliente (Verona), Riparo Villabruna, and Mondeval de Sora (Belluno). The three burials provide a unique dataset for diachronically exploring the influence of climatic changes on human subsistence strategies.

Results

Isotopic results indicate that all individuals likely relied on both terrestrial and freshwater animal proteins. Even though dental calculus analysis was, in part, hindered by the amount of mineral deposit available on the teeth, tooth macrowear study suggests that the dietary habits of the individuals included plant foods. Moreover, differences in macrowear patterns of lower second molars have been documented between Neanderthals and modern humans in the present sample, due to a prevalence of Buccal wear among the former as opposed to higher values of Lingual wear in modern human teeth.

Discussion

Isotopic analyses have emphasized the contribution of animal proteins in the diet of the three foragers from the Eastern Alpine region. The possible intake of carbohydrate‐rich plant foods, suggested by the retrieval of plant remains in dental calculus, is supported by the signal of macrowear analysis. Moreover, the latter method indicates that the distribution of macrowear in lower second molars (M₂s) allows us to discriminate between Neanderthals and modern humans within the present reference sample. Overall, our results show these three prehistoric hunter‐gatherers were well adapted to the environment in which they lived exploiting many natural resources.