Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Uluzzian and the Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition in the Italian Mezzogiorno

在国家科学基金会的资助下，在C.迈克尔·巴顿博士和杰弗里·a·克拉克博士的监督下，朱利安·里尔-萨尔瓦托将调查意大利南部最后一批尼安德特人和第一批现代人的考古情况。这个地区被称为Mezzogiorno，在晚更新世时期构成了一个稳定的、相对孤立的地理区域，并产生了包含Mousterian、Uluzzian和Aurignacian考古组合的洞穴遗址。前两种工业被认为是尼安德特人的手工制品，而奥里尼亚纪则更晚，通常被认为是意大利半岛上第一批现代人类的产物。考古调查将集中在石器技术和经济行为上，以验证奥里尼亚纪与早期工业中的任何一个都代表着根本不同的适应，并强调由最后一批尼安德特人制造的乌鲁齐安的独特特征。将研究石器——考古记录中最持久和最丰富的方面，以重建土地利用模式和石器资源利用，并将研究特定岩石露头的利用模式，以重建三个产业的地理和社会景观。一项全面的放射性碳测年计划将提供奥里尼亚期到达该地区的时间表，并衡量在此期间文化变化的速度，而基于磁化率的古环境重建将测试这一到来与气候恶化的潜在相关性。这项研究的重点是行为差异，这些差异可能使现代人在大约4 -3万年前位于地理死胡同的生态避难所中比尼安德特人具有适应性优势。这项工作将提供关于这两种原始人在尼安德特人消失之前是否曾在Mezzogiorno共存过的详细信息，如果是的话，将强调由此产生的相互作用的决定性特征。通过在更大的生态背景下构建觅食者的行为，该研究将更好地理解这一时期人类与环境的相互作用，并将来自Mezzogiorno的数据与来自邻近地区的数据进行整合。这些洞见最终将有助于澄清什么是完整的人类，以及这段被审视的时期是否证明了非洲以外的行为现代性指标是渐进的、零碎的，还是相对迅速的、决定性的。更广泛地说，该项目将训练作者使用创新的分析方法，直接比较晚更新世狩猎采集者的适应性与那些有民族志记录的同类，并有可能确定现存觅食者不知道的灭绝的特殊行为模式。通过促进意大利和美国科学家之间的合作，该项目还将鼓励不同研究传统之间的科学对话，并刺激国际合作的发展。在意大利和英美同行评议的期刊上发表将确保研究成果向国际科学受众传播，而在美国和意大利的公开讲座将促进对生物和行为进化原理以及广大公众对科学研究过程的进一步理解。

With NSF funding and under the supervision of Dr. C. Michael Barton and Dr. Geoffrey A. Clark, Julien Riel-Salvatore will investigate the archeology of the last Neanderthals and the first modern humans in southern Italy. This region, known as the Mezzogiorno, constituted a stable, relatively isolated geographical area during the Late Pleistocene, and has yielded cave sites containing Mousterian, Uluzzian, and Aurignacian archaeological assemblages. The first two industries are thought to have been the handiwork of Neanderthals, while the Aurignacian is more recent and usually attributed to the first modern humans of the Italian peninsula. The archaeological investigation will focus on stone tool technology and economic behavior to test the proposition that the Aurignacian represented a fundamentally different adaptation than either of the earlier industries, and to highlight the unique features of the Uluzzian which was made by some of the last Neanderthals. Stone tools, the most durable and abundant facet of the archaeological record, will be studied to reconstruct land-use patterns and lithic resource utilization, and a study of the patterns of utilization of given rock outcrops will be undertaken to reconstruct the three industries' geographical and social landscapes. A comprehensive radiocarbon dating program will furnish a timeline for the arrival of the Aurignacian in the area and gauge the pace of cultural change during that period, while paleoenvironmental reconstruction based on magnetic susceptibility will test the potential correlation of this arrival with an episode of climatic deterioration.The proposed research focuses on the behavioral differences that might have given modern humans an adaptive edge over Neanderthals in an ecological refugium located in a geographical cul-de-sac between roughly 40-30,000 years ago. This work will provide fine-grained information on whether the two hominids coexisted in the Mezzogiorno at any point before the disappearance of Neanderthals and, if so, highlight the defining characteristics of the resulting interactions. By framing forager behavior in its larger ecological context, the research will lead to a better understanding of human-environment interactions during that period as well as enable the integration of data from the Mezzogiorno with those from neighboring regions. These insights will ultimately help clarify what it means to be fully human and whether the period under scrutiny attests to the gradual and piecemeal, or relatively rapid and conclusive, apparition of the indicators of behavioral modernity outside of Africa. More broadly, the project will train the author in the use of innovative analytical methods to directly compare Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer adaptations with those of their ethnographically-documented counterparts, and potentially identify extinct idiosyncratic behavioral modes not known from extant foragers. By fostering collaboration between Italian and US-based researchers, this project will also encourage scientific dialogue across different research traditions and spur the development of international collaborations. Publication in Italian and Anglo-American peer-reviewed journals will ensure diffusion of the research results to an international scientific audience, while public lectures in the US and Italy will foster an enhanced understanding of the principles of biological and behavioral evolution and of the process of scientific research in the public at large.