Geochemical and Sr–Nd isotopic characterization of Middle Pleistocene sediments from the paleontological site of La Polledrara di Cecanibbio (Sabatini Volcanic District, central Italy)

40Ar/39Ar and ESR/U-series data for the La Polledrara di Cecanibbio archaeological site (Lazio, Italy)

“…La Polledrara di Cecanibbio is located in the marginal sector of the influence area of Sabatini volcanic district of the 1800 km 2 of the Sabatini Volcanic District (SVD) (Fig. 1), making this volcanic complex the most probable source for the volcanic material found in the site like previously suggesting by the presence of large sanidines crystals (Conticelli et al, 1997) and by the 87 Sr/ 86 Sr measurements obtained by Castorina et al (2015).…”

“…interglacial conditions). New 87 Sr/ 86 Sr analyses performed on the matrix of the archaeological deposit by Castorina et al (2015) suggested different sources from the Monti Sabatini volcanic complex. However, the fact that they did not investigate the white volcanic blocks but only the matrix may explain the diversity of sources highlighted by this study for the archaeological level.…”

“…La Polledrara di Cecanibbio like the neighbouring sites of Torre in Pietra and Castel di Guido is located in the marginal sector of the Monti Sabatini volcanic district and thus presents both reworked volcanic materials and primary fallouts rich in K-Feldspars allowing the use of the 40 Ar/ 39 Ar radio-isotopic method. Furthermore, Castorina et al (2015) suggested, on the basis on Sr isotopes analyses, that volcanic materials originated from Monti Sabatini have contributed to the sediments found at La Polledrara di Cecanibbio.…”

“…It proves that some animals were probably trapped later when this deposit became swampy (Anzidei et al, 2012) and was not totally consolidated (Anzidei et al, 2012). The exceptional preservation state of the archaeological and palaeontological remains is explained by the preponderance in this deposit of volcanic material rich in fluorine (Anzidei et al, 2012, Castorina et al, 2015. In fact, the high percentage of fluorine encompassing the bones allows the rapid exchanges of calcium to form fluoro-apatite (Anzidei et al, 2004).…”

Life Around the Elephant in Space and Time: an Integrated Approach to Study the Human-Elephant Interactions at the Late Lower Paleolithic Site of La Polledrara di Cecanibbio (Rome, Italy)

“…The deposit is the result of various episodes of transportation and accumulation of volcanoclastic sediments (Castorina et al, 2015) due to fluvial, at first, and then palustrine events (Anzidei et al, 2012;Santucci et al, 2016). In the first fluvial stage, numerous remains of fauna were transported and accumulated during flood episodes.…”