Subsistence of early anatomically modern humans in Europe as evidenced in the Protoaurignacian occupations of Fumane Cave, Italy

Abstract

Documenting the subsistence strategies developed by early modern humans is relevant for understanding the success of their dispersal throughout Eurasia. Today, we know that there was not a single colonization event and that the process was progressive while coping with the MIS3 abrupt climatic oscillations. Modern humans expanded into the continent by adapting to different topographic situations and by exploiting resources in diverse ecological niches. The northern part of Italy is one of the first European regions where early modern humans are documented. Here, we present the subsistence regimen adopted by the Protoaurignacian groups in two different levels in Fumane Cave based on archaeozoological data. New radiocarbon dates confirm an overlap between Uluzzian and Protoaurignacian occupations, around 42 and 41,000 cal BP, and reveal that modern humans occupied the cave from GI10 to GS9, the last level coinciding with the Heinrich Event 4. The data indicate seasonal site occupations during late spring/summer and that prey exploitation was focused mostly on ibex and chamois, killed in nearby areas. The whole faunal assemblage suggests the presence of early modern humans in a cold environment with mostly open landscapes and patchy woodlands. The estimation of net primary productivity (NPP) in Fumane, compared with other contemporaneous Italian sites, reflects how the NPP fluctuations in the Prealpine area, where Fumane is located, affected the biotic resources in contrast to known Mediterranean sites. From a pan-European perspective, the spatiotemporal fluctuation of the NPP versus the subsistence strategies adopted by Protoaurignacian groups in the continent supports rapid Homo sapiens dispersal and resilience in a mosaic of environments that were affected by significant climate changes.

Genome sequences of 36,000- to 37,000-year-old modern humans at Buran-Kaya III in Crimea

“…Although the BuKa3 individuals were found to be genetically distant from nearly all currently available UP genomes, the population most genetically similar was found thousands of years later concentrated in southern parts of western Europe. To the east-west genetic differentiation of Gravettian-associated groups identified in Europe during the MUP (Fournol and Věstonice) 15 , these data add a north-south element, characterized by increased Zlatý Kůň-related ancestry found in coastal northeastern Spain and southern France, and to some degree in southern Italy and Austria, a region corresponding roughly to the distribution of proto-Aurignacian sites both prior to and during the Heinrich Event 4 as described in Marín-Arroyo et al 50 . The elevated pre-CI admixture in the more recent BuKa3A compared to the 1,000-years older BuKa3C is reminiscent of population dynamics following the Neolithic expansion into Europe, where incidents of admixture increase only some time after the initial appearance of new migrants 37 .…”

Neanderthal coexistence with Homo sapiens in Europe was affected by herbivore carrying capacity

“…H. sapiens and Neanderthals exploited a wide range of resources, including small-, medium-, and large-sized herbivores (26)(27)(28)(47)(48)(49)(50); marine resources (51)(52)(53); and plant foods (54,55). On the basis of dental wear analyses on fossil specimens, it has been proposed that the proportion of each of these resources in their diet depended on the habitat they inhabited (56), and archaeozoological studies suggest that medium-sized herbivores made up the bulk of their diets (20,(26)(27)(28)50). Therefore, their ecological and trophic niches largely overlapped in regions where both species inhabited, making room for interspecific competition.…”

“…To facilitate data analyses, the herbivore species are commonly grouped into weight size categories. Common weight size classifications used in archaeozoological studies are as follows: small (<20 kg), medium (20 to 100 kg), medium-large (100 to 300 kg), and large-sized (>300 kg) ( 20 , 74 ). We used this classification but grouped the medium and medium-large sizes into the same category because of two main reasons: first, the representation of medium (20 to 100 kg) and medium-large herbivores (100 to 300 kg) is mainly affected by the specific local settings of each site (e.g., orography); as this study focuses on large biogeographical regions, grouping medium and medium-large herbivores (20 to 300 kg) would avoid these representation skews.…”

“…60–30 thousand years (ka) before present (BP)], global climatic conditions experienced rapid and severe oscillations (i.e., Dansgaard-Oeschger events) between full glacial (stadial) and milder (interstadial) conditions ( 16 ). Nevertheless, the amplitude of these climatic fluctuations differed between European regions ( 17 , 18 ) and so did the oscillations in the plant and herbivore biomass ( 19 , 20 ). While some biogeographic regions served as refugia for human populations during the coldest periods of MIS3, other areas experienced harsher climatic conditions and discontinuities in the human settlement ( 21 , 22 ).…”

A valuable contribution to automated analysis of palaeolithic artefacts

“…From the 732 published artifacts, we selected 57 artifacts from the A1-A2 unit, which is dated between 42,000 and 39,250 cal BP. To gain a broader perspective, we included also 5 artifacts from the D3 unit (D3b, D3d and D3d base), which is dated between 40,000 and 37,750 cal BP (Higham et al, 2009;Marín-Arroyo et al, 2023). A total of 62 artifacts were selected according to their varying scar-ridge complexity.…”