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

在美国国家科学基金会的资助下，在C. Michael巴顿和Geoffrey A.克拉克，朱利安里尔萨尔瓦多将调查考古学的最后尼安德特人和第一个现代人在意大利南部。这一地区，被称为Mezzogiorno，在晚更新世期间构成了一个稳定的，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。前两个行业被认为是尼安德特人的手工艺品，而奥里尼亚克人则是近代的，通常被认为是意大利半岛的第一批现代人。考古调查将侧重于石器技术和经济行为，以测试奥里格纳西人代表了与早期工业完全不同的适应性的命题，并突出了由最后的尼安德特人制造的Uluzzian的独特特征。石器是考古记录中最持久和最丰富的方面，将对石器进行研究，以重建土地使用模式和石器资源利用，并将对特定岩石露头的利用模式进行研究，以重建三个行业的地理和社会景观。一项全面的放射性碳测年计划将为奥里尼亚克人抵达该地区提供一个时间轴，并衡量这一时期文化变迁的速度，而基于磁化率的古环境重建将测试这一到来与气候恶化事件的潜在相关性。拟议的研究重点是行为差异，这些差异可能使现代人比尼安德特人具有适应优势，一个生态避难所，位于大约40- 30000年前的一个地理死胡同。这项工作将提供关于这两个原始人是否在尼安德特人消失之前的任何时候在Mezzogiorno共存的细粒度信息，如果是这样，突出了由此产生的相互作用的定义特征。通过在更大的生态背景下构建觅食行为，该研究将更好地了解这一时期人与环境的相互作用，并将Mezzogiorno的数据与邻近地区的数据整合起来。这些见解最终将有助于澄清什么是完整的人类，以及所审查的时期是否证明了非洲以外的行为现代性指标的渐进和零碎，或相对快速和决定性的幽灵。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与他们的人种学记录的同行，并可能识别灭绝的特质行为模式不知道从现存的觅食。通过促进意大利和美国研究人员之间的合作，该项目还将鼓励不同研究传统之间的科学对话，并促进国际合作的发展。在意大利和英美同行评审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公众对生物和行为进化原理以及科学研究过程的理解。

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.