Abstract
Based on the morphology of two deciduous molars and radiocarbon ages from layers D and E of the Grotta del Cavallo (Lecce, Italy), assigned to the Uluzzian, it has been proposed that modern humans were the makers of this Early Upper Paleolithic culture and that this finding considerably weakens the case for an independent emergence of symbolism among western European Neandertals. Reappraisal of the new dating evidence, of the finds curated in the Taranto Antiquities depot, and of coeval publications detailing the site’s 1963–66 excavations shows that (a) Protoaurignacian, Aurignacian and Early Epigravettian lithics exist in the assemblages from layers D and E, (b) even though it contains both inherited and intrusive items, the formation of layer D began during Protoaurignacian times, and (c) the composition of the extant Cavallo assemblages is influenced in a non-negligible manner by the post-hoc assignment of items to stratigraphic units distinct from that of original discovery. In addition, a major disturbance feature affected the 1960s excavation trench down to Mousterian layer F, this feature went unrecognized until 1964, the human remains assigned to the Uluzzian were discovered that year and/or the previous year, and there are contradictions between field reports and the primary anthropological description of the remains as to their morphology and level of provenience. Given these major contextual uncertainties, the Cavallo teeth cannot be used to establish the authorship of the Uluzzian. Since this technocomplex’s start date is ca. 45,000 calendar years ago, a number of Neandertal fossils are dated to this period, and the oldest diagnostic European modern human fossil is the <41,400 year-old Oase 1 mandible, Neandertal authorship of the Uluzzian remains the parsimonious reading of the evidence.
Highlights
Background, outline and aimsIn Europe, the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition took place in an interval of about ten millennia that begins ca. 47,500 years ago with continent-wide Neandertal populations manufacturing Mousterian stone tool assemblages and ends ca. 37,500 years ago with continent-wide anatomically modern populations manufacturing Aurignacian stone tool assemblages
Based on the morphology of two deciduous molars and radiocarbon ages from layers D and E of the Grotta del Cavallo (Lecce, Italy), assigned to the Uluzzian, it has been proposed that modern humans were the makers of this Early Upper Paleolithic culture and that this finding considerably weakens the case for an independent emergence of symbolism among western European Neandertals
Neandertal affinity has been suggested for two deciduous molars attributed to layer E of Grotta del Cavallo [2], whose stone tool assemblages belong to the Uluzzian, a transitional technocomplex found in Italy and Greece [3,4,5,6] (Fig 1), and the stratigraphic association of diagnostic fossils with diagnostic lithics at the sites of Saint-Césaire and Grotte du Renne supports Neandertal authorship of the French Châtelperronian [7,8,9]
Summary
Background, outline and aimsIn Europe, the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition took place in an interval of about ten millennia that begins ca. 47,500 years ago with continent-wide Neandertal populations manufacturing Mousterian stone tool assemblages and ends ca. 37,500 years ago with continent-wide anatomically modern populations manufacturing Aurignacian stone tool assemblages. A number of regionally diverse, stratigraphically intermediate technocomplexes, socalled “transitional,” occupy the intervening millennia Even though they sometimes feature traits inherited from the Middle Paleolithic, these transitional entities are defined by the presence of at least some key components of the so-called “Upper Paleolithic package” (e.g., blade and bladelet production, objects of personal ornamentation, bone tools). As many of these innovations are widely acknowledged to represent reliable material cultural proxies for symbolic thinking, the authorship—Neandertal, or modern human—of the transitional technocomplexes in which they are observed for the first time in Europe has been the matter of much controversy ([1] and references therein). Based on these reassessments of the evidence and on new radiocarbon results placing the emergence of the Uluzzian ca. 45,000 years ago, the authors of the new Cavallo study concluded that this technological tradition was produced by modern humans arriving in Southern Europe three to four millennia earlier than previously thought [12,13]; they further suggested that, it would be “much less likely that Neanderthals developed their own Upper Palaeolithic suite of behaviours before the arrival of anatomically modern humans” [12] (p. 528)
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