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

Abstract

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

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

“…However, the differentiation between the San Teodoro and early farmer oral microbiomes and the lack of plant proteins found in the samples analysed could suggest low plant intake in this Upper Palaeolithic community. Still, this result confirms that the dietary habits of Epigravettian hunter-gatherers included some plant foods, as suggested in other archaeological contexts in Northern and Central Italy 39,46 . The identification of proteins matching the genus of Capra, which could possibly belong to ibex, opens speculations on the dynamics of human populations of Sicily in the Late Glacial and can contribute to the study of mobility of Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers between the island and the Italian peninsula or some trade between Calabria and Sicily.…”

“…While cyprinids are frequently recorded in Western European Upper Palaeolithic deposits, including Epigravettian sites in continental Italy 37 , no evidence of this group has been previously reported from Palaeolithic deposits in Sicily. The presence of freshwater and marine fish in the diet of the two individuals from the San Teodoro cave is fully coherent with its geographic position (a few hundred meters away from the streams Inganno and Furiano, and from the marine coast, Figure S2) and in accordance with the archaeological record know in Sicily and the Mediterranean area for the Upper Palaeolithic [38][39][40] .…”

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

“…At the methodological level, our study shows how the combination of different approaches in the analysis of dental remains from Grotta Continenza allowed us to achieve different levels of resolution with regard to the identification of ancient dietary trends, which are rarely obtained by any of the applied analytical methodologies on their own. This situation strongly suggests that for a reliable and nuanced understanding of past diets based on the study of human odonto-skeletal remains we should always mobilize more than one analytical procedure, as recently put forwards by Oxilia et al for the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene foragers of the eastern Alpine region of Italy 77 . Different strands of analysed data sometimes tell different or even seemingly contradictory stories or accounts that provide diverse levels of detail with regard to the underlying evolutionary and cultural processes being studied.…”

The cranial biomechanics and feeding performance ofHomo floresiensis

“…[57][58][59][60]), occlusal microwear (e.g. [61][62][63][64][65]) and patterns of macrowear [66][67][68][69] will shed new light on the dietary proclivities of this unusual hominin species.…”