0000000001167494
AUTHOR
Gabriella Mangano
The discovery of a Mycenaean-type tholos tomb in the Bronze Age necropolis of the Gazzi buried floodplain (Messina, Southern Italy): new geological and anthropological data
This paper deals with a monument that is, up to this date, unique in Sicily and in the Italian peninsula: the Mycenaean-type tholos tomb of the Gazzi necropolis in Messina. A recent excavation in the alluvial deposits revealed extensive traces of a funerary area with a tholos tomb and several enchytrismos tombs with skeletal remains, presumably dated back to the end of the Early or the initial stage of the Middle(?) Bronze Age. The present multi-disciplinary investigation has been developed to analyse new data related to sediments, building stones and skeletal remains of this funerary area. The stratigraphic succession hosting the necropolis was formed by overbank sediments deposited on the…
I popolamenti faunistici pleistocenici della Sicilia.
Campagna di scavo 2003 alla Grotta di San Teodoro (Acquedolci - Messina): primi dati faunistici e stratigrafici
A mitogenome sequence of an Equus hydruntinus specimen from Late Quaternary site of San Teodoro Cave (Sicily, Italy)
Abstract Equus hydruntinus was a small equid that ranged from the Iberian Peninsula to Middle East. In Italy it has been considered present from the Middle Pleistocene to its extinction in the Middle-Late Holocene. E. hydruntinus shares plesiomorphic traits with other known Pleistocene equids. As a consequence, its classification has always been problematic. Genetic analyses on few fossil remains from Iran and Crimea have revealed that E. hydruntinus was more closely related to extant hemiones. To further investigate its systematic position, using target-enrichment capture and next-generation sequencing, we reconstructed a near complete mitogenome of a specimen from San Teodoro Cave from Si…
Migration and extinction patterns in central Western Mediterranean islands.
Late Pleistocene vertebrate - bearing deposits at San Teodoro Cave (North-Eastern Sicily): Preliminary data on faunal diversification and chronology
Abstract This paper deals with the chronology and the possible correlations among levels of different excavated areas in the Pleistocene vertebrate-bearing deposits at the large San Teodoro Cave (North-Eastern Sicily). Two trenches have been excavated along the eastern side of the cave, located at a distance from the entrance, respectively, of 8 m ( α trench) and 28 m ( β trench) and at different depths. Lithological features, biometrical data from small mammals and ecological data from molluscs point to similar environmental conditions for the α trench deposits and those located along the eastern wall of the cave in the eastern part of the β trench. The same evidence, and the taphonomic fe…
Origination and extinction patterns of mammals in three central Western Mediterranean islands from the Late Miocene to Quaternary
Abstract An overview of the population histories of three insular realms (Gargano palaeo-archipelago, Sardinia–Maritime Tuscany palaeo-bioprovince and the Sicilian insular complex) during the Late Miocene and Quaternary are here presented. The complexity of biodiversity changes in the islands is analysed to propose an interpretation of origination and extinction patterns. The study highlighted several important aspects of insular faunas. Evolutionary radiations were found to contribute significantly only to the Gargano faunal diversity, likely because the area was an archipelago at the time. Another interesting result is that large and small mammals do not disperse and become extinct all at…
Pleistocene Calabrian and Sicilian bioprovinces
During the Pleistocene, southern Calabria was the area through which several mammalian taxa dispersed into the Sicilian island via the Straits of Messina. The rich fossil record of Sicily allowed for the construction of a fairly detailed bio-chronological frame that is dated by correlation of vertebrate bearing deposits with marine deposits. At present five Faunal Complexes (F.C.), characterised by the occurrence of different taxa, have been recognised. The two older Faunal Complexes (Monte Pellegrino F.C.'xes Elephas falconeri F.C.) include taxa with differently marked endemic features denoting the occurrence of an insular system made up of geographically isolated small islands, with very …