A Human Deciduous Tooth and New 40Ar/39Ar Dating Results from the Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Site of Isernia La Pineta, Southern Italy

Abstract

Isernia La Pineta (south-central Italy, Molise) is one of the most important archaeological localities of the Middle Pleistocene in Western Europe. It is an extensive open-air site with abundant lithic industry and faunal remains distributed across four stratified archaeosurfaces that have been found in two sectors of the excavation (3c, 3a, 3s10 in sect. I; 3a in sect. II). The prehistoric attendance was close to a wet environment, with a series of small waterfalls and lakes associated to calcareous tufa deposits. An isolated human deciduous incisor (labelled IS42) was discovered in 2014 within the archaeological level 3 coll (overlying layer 3a) that, according to new 40Ar/39Ar measurements, is dated to about 583–561 ka, i.e. to the end of marine isotope stage (MIS) 15. Thus, the tooth is currently the oldest human fossil specimen in Italy; it is an important addition to the scanty European fossil record of the Middle Pleistocene, being associated with a lithic assemblage of local raw materials (flint and limestone) characterized by the absence of handaxes and reduction strategies primarily aimed at the production of small/medium-sized flakes. The faunal assemblage is dominated by ungulates often bearing cut marks. Combining chronology with the archaeological evidence, Isernia La Pineta exhibits a delay in the appearance of handaxes with respect to other European Palaeolithic sites of the Middle Pleistocene. Interestingly, this observation matches the persistence of archaic morphological features shown by the human calvarium from the Middle Pleistocene site of Ceprano, not far from Isernia (south-central Italy, Latium). In this perspective, our analysis is aimed to evaluate morphological features occurring in IS42.

Uneven Data Quality and the Earliest Occupation of Europe – The Case of Untermassfeld (Germany)

“…regarding the inferred arteficial character of finds (see for example the site Konczyce Wielkie 4 in South Poland [19]) or their age [76] [77], as well illustrated by the significant rejuvenation of the Ceprano (Italy) calvarium over the last decade by about 400,000 years, from an inferred pre-Brunhes-Matuyama [78] age to the current age estimate of around 400 ka [79] -see also the case of the Isernia site in Italy, which has moved from an inferred pre-Brunhes-Matuyama age [58] to well into the Middle Pleistocene, as recently demonstrated again by 40Ar/39Ar dating of the site [80].…”

Insular mammalian fauna dynamics and paleogeography: A lesson from the Western Mediterranean islands

“…The amino acid racemisation (AAR) age of 455 ± 90 ka obtained by Belluomini and Bada (1985) for some P. falconeri bones from Spinagallo cave is roughly consistent with the age of approximately 350 ka proposed by Herridge et al (2014). In the AAR analysis specimens, indeed, the standard was represented by specimens from Isernia la Pineta (central Italy), considered at that time older than 700 ka, but whose age is actually younger than 600 ka (583-561 ka) (Peretto et al, 2015). The structure of the highly depauperated and disharmonic fauna of the P. falconeri FC, which inhabited Sicily during most of the Middle Pleistocene, indicates that a quite severe barrier (crossable only by large mammals with exceptional swimming ability, but precluding a successful potential passive dispersal of small vertebrates) extended between Sicily and the southernmost Italy during most of the Middle Pleistocene.…”

Is the deciduous/permanent molar enamel thickness ratio a taxon-specific indicator in extant and extinct hominids?

“…Most studies on enamel thickness have primarily considered the permanent teeth, especially the molar series, while the extent of covariation in tooth enamel thickness between deciduous and permanent counterparts has been the object of limited quantitative analyses, including in hominids (for a recent synthesis and review of studies on deciduous enamel thickness in humans, see table 1 in Mahoney, 2013; additionally, among other contributions, see Benazzi et al, 2011;Fornai et al, 2014Fornai et al, , 2016Macchiarelli et al, 2006Macchiarelli et al, , 2013Peretto et al, 2015;Zanolli, 2015a;Zanolli et al, 2010aZanolli et al, , 2012Zanolli et al, , 2014. Accordingly, quantitative support to answer a number of questions remains so far elusive.…”