The arrival of Modern Humans (MHs) in Europe between 50 ka and 36 ka coincides with significant changes in human behaviour, regarding the production of tools, the exploitation of resources and the systematic use of ornaments and colouring substances. The emergence of the socalled modern behaviours is usually associated with MHs, although in these last decades findings relating to symbolic thinking of pre-Sapiens groups have been claimed. In this paper we present a synthesis of the Italian evidence concerning bone manufacturing and the use of ornaments and pigments in the time span encompassing the demise of Neandertals and their replacement by MHs. Current data show that Mousterian bone tools are mostly obtained from bone fragments used "as is". Conversely an organized production of "fine shaped" bone tools is characteristic of the Uluzzian and the Protoaurignacian, when the complexity inherent in the manufacturing processes suggests that bone artefacts are not to be considered as expedient resources. Some traces of symbolic activities are associated to Neandertals in Northern Italy. Ornaments (mostly tusk shells) and pigments used for decorative purposes are well recorded during the Uluzzian. Their features and distribution witness to an intriguing cultural homogeneity within this technocomplex. The Protoaurignacian is characterized by a wider archaeological evidence, consisting of personal ornaments (mostly pierced gastropods), pigments and artistic items.

Grotta dei Santi represents a very suitable investigation field for carrying out an inquiry into the Neandertal behaviour at a high-resolution time scale, in order to obtain data useful for the "functional" reading of the economic and settling strategies. This cave opens into the Monte Argentario Promontory (southern coast of Tuscany, central Italy), almost at sea-level, at the base of a limestone falaise about 50 m high. During MIS 3, when Neandertals occupied the site, there was a wide plain in front of the cave. Excavations carried out by the University of Siena over the last 11 years brought to light several Mousterian occupation phases represented, most of the times, by thin living floors separated from one another by sterile sediments. However, another "occupant", the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), left clear traces in the cave in layers other than those occupied by humans. Although there usually is a clear-cut stratigraphic separation, a partial overlapping between the human and hyena occupations is sometimes documented, owing to their closeness in time. This is the case for the uppermost "living floor" of layer 150, which is the object of our study. A multidisciplinary integrated analytic methodology was applied, including lithic technology, taxonomic analysis of faunal remains, taphonomy, use-wear analysis and spatial analysis by means of a GIS platform. This approach allowed us to detect a set of parameters useful for identifying activities due to each of these two predators individually, which provided substantial information about their behaviours.

The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition, between 50 000 and 40 000 years ago, is a period of important ecological and cultural changes. In this framework, the Rock Shelter of Uluzzo C (Apulia, southern Italy) represents an important site due to Late Mousterian and Uluzzian evidence preserved in its stratigraphic sequence. Here, we present the results of a multidisciplinary analysis performed on the materials collected between 2016 and 2018 from the Uluzzian stratigraphic units (SUs) 3, 15 and 17. The analysis involved lithic technology, use‐wear, zooarchaeology, ancient DNA of sediments and palaeoproteomics, completed by quartz single‐grain optically stimulated luminescence dating of the cave sediments. The lithic assemblage is characterized by a volumetric production and a debitage with no or little management of the convexities (by using the bipolar technique), with the objective to produce bladelets and flakelets. The zooarchaeological study found evidence of butchery activity and of the possible exploitation of marine resources, while drawing a picture of a patchy landscape, composed of open forests and dry open environments surrounding the shelter. Ancient mitochondrial DNA from two mammalian taxa were recovered from the sediments. Preliminary zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry results are consistent with ancient DNA and zooarchaeological taxonomic information, while further palaeoproteomics investigations are ongoing. Our new data from the re‐discovery of the Uluzzo C Rock Shelter represent an important contribution to better understand the meaning of the Uluzzian in the context of the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition in south‐eastern Italy.

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