Chronometric data and stratigraphic evidence support discontinuity between Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens in the Italian Peninsula

Tom Higham (), Marine Frouin (), Katerina Douka, Annamaria Ronchitelli, Paolo Boscato, Stefano Benazzi, Jacopo Crezzini, Vincenzo Spagnolo, Maxine McCarty, Giulia Marciani, Armando Falcucci, Matteo Rossini, Simona Arrighi, Clarissa Dominici, Thibaut Devièse, Jean-Luc Schwenninger, Ivan Martini, Adriana Moroni and Francesco Boschin ()
Additional contact information
Tom Higham: University of Vienna
Marine Frouin: Stony Brook University
Katerina Douka: University of Vienna
Annamaria Ronchitelli: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)
Paolo Boscato: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)
Stefano Benazzi: Università degli Studi di Bologna (UniBO)
Jacopo Crezzini: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)
Vincenzo Spagnolo: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)
Maxine McCarty: Arizona State University
Giulia Marciani: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)
Armando Falcucci: Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
Matteo Rossini: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)
Simona Arrighi: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)
Clarissa Dominici: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)
Thibaut Devièse: Technopôle de l’Arbois
Jean-Luc Schwenninger: University of Oxford
Ivan Martini: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)
Adriana Moroni: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)
Francesco Boschin: Università degli Studi di Siena (UniSI)

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Abstract The process by which Palaeolithic Europe was transformed from a Neanderthal-dominated region to one occupied exclusively by Homo sapiens has proven challenging to diagnose. A blurred chronology has made it difficult to determine when Neanderthals disappeared and whether modern humans overlapped with them. Italy is a crucial region because here we can identify not only Late Mousterian industries, assumed to be associated with Neanderthals, but also early Upper Palaeolithic industries linked with the appearance of early H. sapiens, such as the Uluzzian and the Aurignacian. Here, we present a chronometric dataset of 105 new determinations (74 radiocarbon and 31 luminescence ages) from four key southern Italian sites: Cavallo, Castelcivita, Cala, and Oscurusciuto. We built Bayesian-based chronometric models incorporating these results alongside the relative stratigraphic sequences at each site. The results suggest; 1) that the disappearance of Neanderthals probably pre-dated the appearance of early modern humans in the region and; 2) that there was a partial overlap in the chronology of the Uluzzian and Protoaurignacian, suggesting that these industries may have been produced by different human groups in Europe.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51546-9 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-51546-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51546-9

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().