0000000000149969

AUTHOR

Sylvia Di Marco

Paleogenetic and morphometric analysis of a Mesolithic individual from Grotta d'Oriente: An oldest genetic legacy for the first modern humans in Sicily

Abstract Grotta d’Oriente, a coastal cave located on the island of Favignana (Sicily, Italy) is a key site for the study of the early human colonization of Sicily. Inside the cave, during different field excavations, three burials attributable to the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic were found. The Mesolithic Oriente B individual, directly dated at 9,377 ± 25 uncal BP, was previously assigned to HV1 haplogroup using a traditional approach. However, it is well known that PCR based methods are prone to erroneous haplotype or haplogroup determination. In order to redefine the mitochondrial lineage of this Mesolithic hunter-gatherer and explore its phylogenetic position, we target-enriche…

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Late Pleistocene Human Evolution in Sicily: Comparative morphometric analysis of grotta di San Teodoro craniofacial remains.

Late Pleistocene human evolution in Sicily: comparative morphometric analysis of Grotta di San Teodoro craniofacial remains. D'Amore G, Di Marco S, Tartarelli G, Bigazzi R, Sineo L. Source Laboratorio di Archeoantropologia, Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana, Via dei Rossi 26/A, 50018 Scandicci, Firenze, Italy. Abstract The paleoanthropological remains from Grotta di San Teodoro near Acquedolci (province of Messina, Italy) represent the oldest and largest skeletal collection yet found documenting human settlement of Sicily. The sample, attributed to the Late Epigravettian (between 14,000 and 10,000 years B.P.), consists of seven variously complete adult individuals (San Te…

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Early human peopling of Sicily: Evidence from the Mesolithic skeletal remains from Grotta d'Oriente

The site of Grotta d'Oriente, Island of Favignana, Sicily has yielded the complete skeleton of an adult female (OB) dated to the Mesolithic age. The cranial morphometry of this individual can provide us with some useful information about the peopling of Sicily in the Early Holocene period.Morphological affinities of OB and other Sicilian Mesolithic specimens were assessed to verify hypotheses concerning the early peopling of Sicily.Craniofacial metric data were employed in a comparative analysis with European Upper Palaeolithic (UP), Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Copper/Bronze age samples, and contemporary Italians. Both a model-free and a model-bound approach were used not only to calculate c…

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