The earliest securely dated hominin fossil in Italy and evidence of Acheulian occupation during glacial MIS 16 at Notarchirico (Venosa, Basilicata, Italy)

Abstract

The Early Middle Pleistocene site of Notarchirico (Basilicata, Italy) is a 7-m-thick fluvially emplaced sedimentary sequence rich in volcanic materials coming from the Monte Vulture stratovolcano. This site consists of 11 archaeological layers, some of which have yielded handaxes. One femur attributed to Homo heidelbergensis was also recovered from an upper level. We present in this study new 40 Ar/ 39 Ar and electron spin resonance ages that delimit the time of occupation of Notarchirico to between 670 AE 4 ka (14 ka) and 614 AE 4 ka (12 ka), therefore spanning mainly the glacial Marine Isotope Stage 16. Handaxes found in archaeosurface F are now securely dated to between 670 AE 4 ka (14 ka) and 661 AE 4 ka (14 ka) and prove that hominid populations living in southern Italy used Acheulian technology as early as the beginning of this stage. Futhermore, we placed the age of the human femur between 661 AE 4 ka (14 ka) and 614AE 4 ka (12 ka). This fossil is therefore the oldest Middle Pleistocene human fossil discovered in Italy so far. Thanks to this new chronological framework, Notarchirico is now a key site in our understanding of the Early Acheulian culture in Western Europe.

ESR and ESR/U-series chronology of the Middle Pleistocene site of Tourville-la-Rivière (Normandy, France) - A multi-laboratory approach

“…A multiple centre approach seems therefore indispensable when dating this type of fluvio-estuarine sediment, even when the sedimentological characteristics of the sediments seem initially quite suitable for an ESR study (as it was the case for the Tourville D1 and I units). Similar observations have been recently made on fluvial deposits from Spain (Duval et al, 2017;Méndez-Quintas et al, 2018), Italy (Pereira et al, 2015(Pereira et al, , 2018Voinchet et al, this issue) or France (Duval et al, submitted).…”

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

“…This gives special importance to the study of the geological context of inferred early sites: rocks can fracture naturally and edges can be modified by natural processes in sediments such as cryoturbation, transport, and volcanic activities, and a wide variety of such processes has been documented to mimic hominin modification and to produce Bartefact-like^geofacts (Gillespie et al 2004;Lubinski et al 2014;Nash 1993;Peacock 1991;Raynal et al 1995;Warren 1914Warren , 1920Wiśniewski et al 2014) (see also below, BDiscussion^). Interestingly, the emergence of the Acheulean signal in southern (Villa 2001) as well as northwestern Europe from 600 to 700 ka (Moncel et al 2013(Moncel et al , 2015Pereira et al 2015) onward is in the same time range as the current estimate for the beginning of the Neandertal lineage (Meyer et al 2016).…”

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

“…This gives special importance to the study of the geological context of inferred early sites: rocks can fracture naturally and edges can be modified by natural processes in sediments such as cryoturbation, transport and volcanic activities, and a wide variety of such processes has been documented to mimic hominin modification and to produce "artefact-like" geofacts, [16][17][18][19] (see also below, Discussion). Interestingly, the emergence of the Acheulean signal in southern [20] as well as northwestern Europe from 600-700 ka [14,21,22] onward is in the same time range as the current estimate for the beginning of the Neandertal lineage [23].…”