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. 2022 Sep;179(1):18-30.
doi: 10.1002/ajpa.24593. Epub 2022 Jul 20.

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

Gregorio Oxilia  1 , Eugenio Bortolini  1   2 , Giulia Marciani  1   3 , Jessica Cristina Menghi Sartorio  4 , Antonino Vazzana  1 , Matteo Bettuzzi  5 , Daniele Panetta  6 , Simona Arrighi  1   3 , Federica Badino  1   7 , Carla Figus  1 , Federico Lugli  1   8 , Matteo Romandini  1 , Sara Silvestrini  1 , Rita Sorrentino  1 , Adriana Moroni  3 , Carlo Donadio  9 , Maria Pia Morigi  5 , Viviane Slon  10   11   12 , Marcello Piperno  13 , Sahra Talamo  14   15 , Carmine Collina  13 , Stefano Benazzi  1   15
Affiliations

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

Gregorio Oxilia et al. Am J Biol Anthropol. 2022 Sep.

Abstract

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).

Keywords: Mediterranean Europe; Neanderthal; Uluzzian; deciduous human molars; supervised learning algorithms; virtual analysis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared that there is no conflict of interests.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Stratigraphic sequence of Roccia san Sebastiano. (a) Detail of the excavation area (photos by C. Collina); (b) planimetry of the excavated areas; (c) stratigraphic sequence correlation, lithological column, cultural domain. Uluzzian levels (highlighted in yellow) and direct radiocarbon dating (red rectangle) have been highlighted
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Three‐dimensional digital models of lower left second deciduous molar, Ldm2; A) RSS 1 and B) RSS 2. On the right side, the enamel‐dentine junction (EDJ) of the teeth virtually analyzed. Ant‐Fov, anterior fovea; MTC, middle trigonid crest; MET, Metaconid; ENT, Entoconid; HYP, Hypoconid; HYPL, Hypoconulid; PRO, Protoconid; B, buccal; D, distal; L, lingual; M, mesial; O, occlusal. The horizontal black bars are equivalent to 1 cm
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Shape–space principal component analysis (PCA) plots of Ldm2 crown (a) and cervical (b) outlines. The deformed mean crown outline in the direction of the PC is drawn at the extremity of each axis. RSS1_O, Roccia san Sebastiano 1 original; RSS1_R, Roccia san Sebastiano 1 restored; N, Neanderthal; RHS, recent Homo sapiens; UPHS, upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Taxonomic attribution obtained from supervised learning models on RSS1 and RSS2 crown (a) and cervical (b) outlines data. RSS1_OR, RSS1 original; RSS1_R, RSS1 restored; FDA, flexible discriminant analysis; MARS, multivariate adaptive regression splines; RF, random forest; MH, modern humans; N, Neanderthals
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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