Search

Objectives: Grotta‐Riparo di Uluzzo C (Apulia, southern Italy) is a pivotal site for investigating the evolution of the Middle Paleolithic and the earliest phases of the Upper Paleolithic in southern Italy, as the extensive stratigraphic record of this site includes a thick Mousterian sequence followed by the Uluzzian. Here, we investigate the taxonomic affinity of seven unpublished deciduous human teeth retrieved from the site of Uluzzo C in 1960. Materials and Methods: The teeth are represented by seven plaster dental casts, which are housed at the Museo Civico di Paleontologia e Paletnologia in Maglie (Lecce, Apulia). The location of the original specimens remains unknown, rendering these casts the only human remains evidence yielded by Uluzzo C to date. Based on occlusal‐view photographs and digital models of the casts, we examined the external morphology and morphometry of the teeth, comparing them to Homo sapiens and H. neanderthalensis samples. Through geometric morphometric methods and statistical analyses, we analyzed the crown outline of the deciduous molars. Results: The teeth show morphological and morphometric features that are variably found in H. neanderthalensis, H. sapiens, or both. Specifically, crown outline analysis shows that all molars fall within H. neanderthalensis variability, except for Uluzzo 853 (lower right deciduous first molar), which falls within H. sapiens variability. Discussion: This study provides the first taxonomic assessment of the hominin teeth from Uluzzo C. The results contribute additional insights into the Paleolithic peopling of southern Italy during a crucial period marked by the persistence of post‐Tyrrhenian Neanderthal techno‐complexes and the arrival of H. sapiens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Aterian represents one of the multiple facets of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) and has become increasingly important in the context of understanding modern human origins. In this paper, we present the results of our study on the Aterian in the Jebel Gharbi, North-Western Libya, from a regional point perspective. A total of 1567 lithic objects were analysed for this work from twelve different Aterian assemblages. The results of this analysis show a wide range of economic behaviour, possibly suggesting different site functions, within the three main areas (Ain Zargha, Jefara and Wadi Ghan). It is unlikely that any of these assemblages represents a residential site. Instead, we argue that the assemblages in the study are more likely to be the result of a logistic land use. Technologically, they exhibit all the distinctive features of the Aterian technocomplexes: coexistence between Levallois and blade technology, presence of tanged pieces and bifacial foliates, as well as of “Upper Palaeolithic” tools, together with a majority of sidescrapers and endscrapers. Only a combination of these features, and certainly not one of them alone, can characterize an assemblage as “Aterian”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]