The so-called “Altamura Man” is a Neanderthal skeleton found in 1993 in the Lamalunga karstic system (southern Italy). The skeleton, dated between 172 and 130 ka, still lies deep within a spectacular ...cave setting, partly embedded within speleothems and extensively covered by coralloid concretions. These peculiar location and conditions would entail major difficulties in excavating and preserving ex-situ this skeleton. Moreover, a decision-making impasse among the institutions involved complicates the problem. Yet, this specimen is one of the best preserved human fossils known. From 2016 to 2020 we conducted extensive in situ investigations of the specimen. Digital techniques and equipment specifically designed for or adapted to the difficult underground context were used in carrying out the most detailed assessment possible of the skeleton. The data thus collected provide an insight into human evolution in Europe, and a first glance at the amount of information this amazing specimen could provide. In this contribution, we want to update the information on the problematic context of Lamalunga, and address the innovative solutions put in place in 2016–2020 to study and preserve the Neanderthal skeleton in this fragile environment.
•The so-called “Altamura Man” is one of the most complete Neanderthal fossils.•The site and condition of preservation have made the study problematic for decades.•New studies in situ allowed a better characterization of the fossil and its context.•We review what is currently known of the specimen and its site in southern Italy.•We also present some of the innovative methods used for the study.
Excavation sites are laboratories and data sources of archaeological science. Each archaeological site has its own specific excavation practices. Taking this situation into consideration, different ...excavation methods have been developed and continue to improve thanks to technological tools and equipment. Site dynamics play an important role in deciding an excavation method. As a result of excavations carried out in different systematics as “Horizontal Plan Excavations” and “Vertical Plan Excavations”, both the data to be obtained and the speed of accessing the data vary. Since the aim of “Horizontal Plan Excavations” is based on revealing together of life elements, on the same plane, in wide-plan squares, it provides that the settlement layers in the stratigraphy are clearly visible; in “Vertical Plan Excavations”, the target is to quickly detect cultural layers by excavating from top to bottom in several adjacent plan squares. “Step Trench” as “Vertical Plan Excavation” is methods applied in mounds, but it can also be applied in cave excavations. Since cave, large or small-scale mound and large-scale city excavations are among the rich resources of Anatolian archeology distinct excavation methods mentioned above, can be applied. The cultural deposit structure of settlements is an also important determinants in deciding which of these excavation methods to use. The aim of this article is to reveal the advantages of evaluating the data obtained when cave archeology, which is tried to be continued with a small number of excavations, is carried out with a horizontal plan excavation, specifically in the Direkli Cave. Excavations.
•The use of spherulites successfully isolates Early Upper Palaeolithic context.•INTCAL2020 radiocarbon calibration confirms Early Upper Palaeolithic deposit.•Silt lenses lain by sheetwash separate ...occupational episodes with hearths.•Fruit phytoliths and charred macrobotanical remains, indicate use of plant foods.
With a rich, well-dated Early Upper Palaeolithic layer, the Mughr el-Hamamah cave site is key for understanding the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Levant. The archaeological deposit consists of two units. Layer A resulted from pastoral activities during the 20th century and Layer B dated between 44.5 and 40.0 ky BP. During Layer A’s formation, shepherds disturbed Layer B, redepositing Early Upper Palaeolithic sediments and lithic artefacts in Layer A matrix. Activity from Layer A’s formation also resulted in spatially patchy percolation and bioturbation, leaving microarchaeological traces such as dung spherulites in some areas in Layer B. In contrast, contemporaneous chemical diagenetic processes from Layer B’s primary formation caused spatially uneven post-depositional dissolution of animal bone. In this article we present a multi-proxy microarchaeological approach to investigate the post-depositional processes in Layer B, focussing on possible impacts on the plant archaeological record. The identification of intrusive spherulites from shepherds’ activities define the limits of disturbance in Layer B. Micromorphological analyses have identified four intact micro-facies in Layer B, representing an interplay of natural and anthropogenic factors. Micromorphological details in bedded combustion features favour the interpretation that associated phytoliths represent fuel traces. Dicot fruit phytoliths occur in the western area of the cave, where well-preserved charred wood and seeds were also found. Grass-diagnostic phytoliths correspond to C3 and C4 taxa, indicating an overall humid environment with dry spells. Microarchaeological analysis identifies traces of both bedded and dispersed hearth materials, mixed with variable plant resources for food, fuel, and possibly other uses. This strengthens the interpretation of Mughr el-Hamamah Layer B as a dense, complicated palimpsest of recurring activities, formed over many millennia.
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•Geoarchaeology•Cave Archaeology•Sedimentology•FTIR•ICP-MS•SEM-EDS•Anthropogenic vs Natural Deposits•Fijian Archaeology
This report summarizes the results of a series of original ...investigations of Naihehe Cave on Viti Levu, Fiji, which include excavations and laboratory analyses. The goal of this research was to investigate evidence of human occupation of Naihehe cave in prehistory via analyses of sediments, sedimentary processes, and identification of parent materials and anthropogenic deposits. Analyses of sediments were conducted at “macro” and “micro”-scales: the macro-scale approach analyzed aggregates of sediment grains using Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Laser-ablated Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The micro-scale approach focused on individual grains of sediment using Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersion Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). Identified charcoal and radiocarbon dating were used to determine the age of deposits. The results of these analyses identified different classes of sediment based upon their textural and mineralogical qualities and determined major and minor elemental components of individual grains and aggregates. These in turn provide unique insights into the origin and depositional environment of the cave’s sediments. Analyses also identified anthropogenic deposits via the detection of elemental and mineralogical signatures and intrusive microfossils. Combustion features in the cave’s deposits, two of which produced calibrated radiocarbon dates of 886-1013 CE (2σ) and 260-529 CE (2σ), identify human activity in the cave in the two millennia following human colonization of Fiji. This report discusses these primary findings and argues that instrument-based studies of sediment are insightful for the identification of natural and anthropogenic deposits.
•Multiple Holocene human remains from caves in S Poland have been recently radiocarbon dated.•In 9 caves human remains have been radiocarbon dated to Late Roman and Early Migration Period.•This ...indicates the unrecognised phenomenon of funeral cave use in Barbaric Central Europe.•The phenomenon was not restricted to specific age or gender and included both locals and non-locals.•The surprising funeral use of caves shed light on the turbulent times of the Late Roman Period.
Although caves have been used for funerary purposes almost since the dawn of time, there is very little evidence of such use in Central European Barbaricum. This paper presents newly obtained results from the Cracow Upland (southern Poland) concerning multiple skeletal remains that apparently share a similar third–fifth centuries AD chronology, corresponding to the Late Roman and Early Migration Periods. Multiple analyses have been performed to supplement archaeological data, including radiocarbon dating, osteoarchaeological analysis, ancient DNA research and isotopic analysis. The complex picture points towards unusual burial practices, which generally spanned from the third to the fifth centuries AD and involved a broad demographic, with no indication of selection based on an individual's biological profile. Isotopic analysis has also indicated the individuals’ heterogeneity with regard to diet and local versus nonlocal origin. The results point towards the previously unrecognized unique role of caves in the Przeworsk culture, then present in southern Poland.
Although multiple Mesolithic cave sites have been recognised in Europe, the use of such sites by Early Holocene hunter gatherers was extremely scarce north of the Carpathians. Single Mesolithic ...artefacts have been found thus far only in six cave sites in Poland. The rich Early Mesolithic assemblage found in Bramka Rockshelter in southern Poland seems to be quite extraordinary in such a context. The site was excavated over 50 years ago, but the results have never been published or analysed beyond a short mention of child burial found in the Mesolithic context. The paper presents new radiocarbon dates obtained for the Mesolithic occupation and the child burial, showing the Early Holocene chronology of the Komornician assemblage and the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age chronology of the burial. The assemblage's techno-typological analysis allowed us to identify six human occupation phases at the site, with the most intensive phase connected to the Mesolithic. Comparative analyses of other Mesolithic assemblages from the region, together with an extremely high percentage of debitage found in the Bramka Rockshelter assemblage, allow us to discuss the possibility of identifying the site as a knapping workshop located in the vicinity of Jurassic flint outcrops.
For the first project in its "Dates in Drawers" programme, the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society collaborated with the Craven Museum to obtain a radiocarbon date for one of the three ...crouched burials recovered from Elbolton Cave in the nineteenth century. The Early Neolithic date range that was obtained finds corroboration in the conclusions drawn from ongoing aDNA work on human remains from the cave, whilst a review of the pottery assemblage has found no unequivocal Early Neolithic material that might be associated with the burials. Although the archive from this excavation was lost long ago, the recent and ongoing research demonstrates that the finds from the cave are still able to make a significant contribution to the wider understanding of the chronology of prehistoric cave use in the Yorkshire Dales.
•A multiproxy approach was applied for palaeoenvironment analyses in Koziarnia Cave.•Layers related to Middle Palaeolithic, Jerzmanowician, and Early Gravettian were analysed.•Two MIS 3 climate ...oscillations were detected.•Jerzmanowician occupation was connected with a relatively cold episode.•Middle Palaeolithic and Early Gravettian groups inhabited the cave during milder climatic conditions.
Marine Isotope Stage 3 is considered a period with several climate oscillations that drove the environments to rapid changes. To understand how these stadial-interstadial cycles affected southern Poland, we combined the results of eight proxies analysed in the samples from the old excavations and a new 2017 trench of Koziarnia Cave (Ojców National Park, Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, Poland) in layers related to Middle Palaeolithic, Jerzmanowician, and Early Gravettian. Among the studied proxies were charcoals, pollen record, remains of malacofauna, and vertebrates (including rodents, birds and large mammals, and ZooMS analysis of fragmented bones). Moreover, sediment samples have been analysed for lipid composition (by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, GC–MS).
Despite several taphonomic issues, it was possible to recognise two oscillations. The first one, reflected in pollen record and lipid analysis, took place during Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) 14 to 8 and included Heinrich Stadial (HS) 4. The second one, recorded by rodents and bird proxies, was related to DO 8/7 to DO 6 and included HS 3. Charcoal and large mammal proxies provided the broad context of our study. The Jerzmanowician occupation was connected with a relatively cold episode in a landscape characterized mainly by grassland and periglacial environments, while the Late Middle Palaeolithic and Early Gravettian groups settled the cave during milder climatic conditions, where environments were open with sparse boreal woodlands. Such trends provide additional arguments in a broad discussion on Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in Central Europe.
After groundbreaking work by multiple archaeologists in the latter half of the 20th century, caves in the Maya world are currently acknowledged as fundamentally ritual rather than domestic spaces. ...However, a more nuanced read of the anthropological literature and conversations with Indigenous collaborators in the past and present pushes us to move still farther and see caves not as passive contexts to contain ceremonies directed elsewhere but animate beings with unique identities and personalities in their own right. This article combines archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic documentation of Maya cave use in central Guatemala to build a foundation for examining caves as living beings, with particular attention played to the role they play as active agents in local politics and quotidian life. Through ritual offerings, neighboring residents and travelers maintain tight reciprocal relationships with specific caves and other geographic idiosyncrasies dotting the landscape to ensure the success of multiple important activities and the continued well-being of families and communities.
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