Integrated multidisciplinary ecological analysis from the Uluzzian settlement at the Uluzzo C Rock Shelter, south‐eastern Italy

Genome Biology and Evolution

Aneli

et al. 2022

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The population dynamics that followed the Out of Africa (OoA) expansion and the whereabouts of the early migrants before the differentiation that ultimately led to the formation of Oceanian, West and East Eurasian macropopulations have long been debated. Shedding light on these events may, in turn, provide clues to better understand the cultural evolution in Eurasia between 50 and 35 ka. Here, we analyze Eurasian Paleolithic DNA evidence to provide a comprehensive population model and validate it in light of available material culture. Leveraging on our integrated approach we propose the existence of a Eurasian population Hub, where Homo sapiens lived between the OoA and the broader colonization of Eurasia, which was characterized by multiple events of expansion and local extinction. A major population wave out of Hub, of which Ust’Ishim, Bacho Kiro, and Tianyuan are unadmixed representatives, is broadly associated with Initial Upper Paleolithic lithics and populated West and East Eurasia before or around 45 ka, before getting largely extinct in Europe. In this light, we suggest a parsimonious placement of Oase1 as an individual related to Bacho Kiro who experienced additional Neanderthal introgression. Another expansion, started before 38 ka, is broadly associated with Upper Paleolithic industries and repopulated Europe with sporadic admixtures with the previous wave (GoyetQ116-1) and more systematic ones, whereas moving through Siberia (Yana, Mal’ta). Before these events, we also confirm Zlatý Kůň as the most basal human lineage sequenced to date OoA, potentially representing an earlier wave of expansion out of the Hub.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetics and Material Culture Support Repeated Expansions into Paleolithic Eurasia from a Population Hub Out of Africa

Vallini

Genome Biology and Evolution

Aneli

et al. 2022

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“…In Western Europe, in the same timeframe, this interaction has been suggested as a trigger for the development of Chatelperronian material culture (Roussel et al, 2016), while the Uluzzian techno-complex in Mediterranean Europe may tentatively be better explained by an additional, yet uncharacterized expansion from the Hub (Benazzi et al, 2011;Marciani et al, 2020) although genomic data from Uluzzian strata is still lacking. The Uluzzian technocomplex is indeed characterized by unprecedented versatility and efficient management of production costs, considerably lower standardisation in design compared to Mousterian industries, lower time and energy expenditure for initialisation and management of volumes, and a much shorter response time to change in raw material or environmental conditions Collina et al, 2020;Marciani et al, 2020;Moroni et al, 2013Moroni et al, , 2018Peresani et al, 2019;Riel-Salvatore, 2007Silvestrini et al, 2021). In addition, this technological change is linked to the appearance of complementary tools (Haidle et al, 2015) , (Sano et al, 2019) , innovations in hunting strategies (Boscato & Crezzini, 2012;Romandini et al, 2020), and a shared package of symbolic artefacts Arrighi, Moroni, et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetics and material culture support repeated expansions into Paleolithic Eurasia from a population hub out of Africa

Vallini

Aneli

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The population dynamics that followed the out of Africa expansion (OoA) and ultimately led to the formation of Oceanian, West and East Eurasian macro populations have long been debated. Furthermore, with the OoA being dated between 70 kya and 65 kya and the earliest splits between West and East Eurasian populations being inferred not earlier than 43 kya from modern DNA data, an additional question concerns the whereabouts of the early migrants out of Africa before those differentiations. Shedding light on these population dynamics may, in turn, provide clues to better understand cultural evolution in Eurasia between 50 kya and 35 kya, where the development of new technologies may be correlated to parallel independent evolution paths, to the arrival of new populations, or to long-term processes of cultural and biological exchanges. Here we jointly re-analyze Eurasian Paleolithic DNA available to date in light of material culture, and provide a comprehensive population model with minimal admixture events. Our integrated approach i) maintains Zlaty Kůň genetically as the most basal out of Africa human lineage sequenced to date, also in comparison to Oceanians and putatively links it with non-Mousterian material cultures documented in Europe 48-43 kya; ii) infers the presence of an OoA population Hub from which a major wave broadly associated with Initial Upper Paleolithic lithic industries emanated to populate West and East Eurasia before or around 45 kya, and of which Ust′Ishim, Bacho Kiro and Tianyuan were unadmixed descendants; iii) proposes a parsimonious placement of Oase1 as an individual related to Bacho Kiro who experienced additional Neanderthal introgression; and iv) explains the East/West Eurasian population split as a longer permanence of the latter in the OoA Hub, followed by a second population expansion (before 37 kya), broadly associated with Upper Paleolithic industries, that largely replaced pre-existing humans in Europe, and admixed with the previous wave to form Yana and Mal′ta in Siberia and, to a greater extent, GoyetQ116-1 in Belgium.

“…Mousterian and Uluzzian techno‐complexes in Italy have been documented in some cave and sheltered sites (for an updated review), such as Broion (Peresani et al, 2019), Fumane (Peresani et al, 2016), La Fabbrica (Villa et al, 2018), Castelcivita (Arrighi, Marciani, et al, 2020; Gambassini, 1997), Cala (Benini et al, 1997); Uluzzo C (Silvestrini et al, 2021), and Cavallo (Fabbri et al, 2016; Moroni et al, 2013). However, only a few human remains dated between 50 and 40 ka have been discovered in Italy (Buzi et al, 2021) and it is notable that the association between one fossil in one context does not imply that one techno‐complex is exclusively related with one or the other species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Oxilia

Bortolini

American Journal of Biological Anthropology

et al. 2022

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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).