This paper examines the hypothesis that changes in hunting weapons during the Paleolithic were a direct response to a progressive decline in prey size. The study builds upon a unified hypothesis that explains Paleolithic human evolutionary and behavi...
Collecting is a form of leisure, and even a passion, consisting of collecting, preserving and displaying objects. When we look for its origin in the literature, we are taken back to “the appearance of writing and the fixing of knowledge”,...
There are many opinions and arguments about the types of weapons that Neanderthals may have used. We list five assumptions about Neanderthal weapon-assisted hunting and suggest that the tip cross-sectional area (TCSA) approach may be used to assess t...
This work presents a comprehensive review of the Quaternary fossil records of hippopotamuses from the Iberian Peninsula, unveiling biogeographical insights of global significance. The results presented herein include the inference of a delayed arriva...
The acquisition of large prey by hominins living during the Marine Isotope Stage 3, including Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans, had nutritional and bioenergetic implications: these contain high fat amounts, provide a high energy return, an...
Many volcanological and geoarchaeological studies in the ancient city of Pompeii (Italy) have been devoted to the 79 CE Plinian eruption of Vesuvius, which sealed the city under a thick pyroclastic sequence. Only fragmentary information exists regard...
The dwarf Sardinian mammoth, Mammuthus lamarmorai, is a well-known species frequently cited in the literature; however, the fossil record of the Pleistocene Sardinian mammoths mainly consists of isolated remains (an incomplete skeleton from Guardia P...
Located at the eastern corner of Mediterranean Europe, Greece occupies a critical position for mammal dispersals to/from Europe, Asia, and Africa and constitutes a potential passageway towards Western Europe. During recent decades, numerous fieldwork...
The dispersal of primitive elephantines and monodactyl equids in Eurasia has long been regarded as representative of a substantial turnover in mammal faunas, denoting the spread of open environments linked to the onset of cold and dry conditions in t...
The Late Holocene fossil pollen records from the Zemu glacier, located in Yabuk, North Sikkim, in the eastern Himalayas, effectively generated quantitative climate reconstructions based on the transfer function model. The transfer function model was...
Crop yield prediction is one of the crucial components of agriculture that plays an important role in the decision-making process for sustainable agriculture. Remote sensing provides the most efficient and cost-effective solution for the measurement...
Personal ornaments play an important role in our understanding of human cultural and behavioral change during the Upper Paleolithic, providing insights into intangible aspects of human cultural behavior. Some ornament forms are better studied than ot...
Roman fish tanks are found in various coastal regions of the Mediterranean, although the vast majority is found on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy. In this work, a database was developed with information on 62 fish tanks along the Mediterranean coasts...
This paper considers some problems of the Late Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic periods in Northern Italy. More precisely, it deals with chronology, settlement pattern, techno-typological characteristics of knapped stone assemblages, and climatic chan...
Recent investigations in the upper Lower–Middle Pleistocene deposits of the Megalopolis Basin (Greece) led to the discovery of several sites/findspots with abundant faunal material. Here, we provide an updated overview including new results on...
Earthquake precursors are the indicators that appear before an earthquake. The release of radon gas, ionospheric disturbances, anomalous animal behavior, and so on are examples of seismic and aseismic events. Ionospheric perturbations can be proved t...
Blades as a component of lithic assemblages hold significant importance to understanding the more recent part of human evolution, particularly with regard to the emergence and adaptations of Homo sapiens. The systematic production of elongated stone...
As humans expanded across the globe, the Americas were the last continents to be colonized. While debates persist regarding the timing and mechanisms of this process, it is widely accepted that by the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, the New Wo...
Humans are well known to have made paintings and engravings on rock surfaces, both geometric motifs with an unclear representation, and representative motifs that refer to their activities and aspects of their environment. This kind of art is widespr...
Phytolith analysis is a well-established archaeobotanical tool, having provided important insights into pre-Columbian crop cultivation and domestication across Amazonia through the Holocene. Yet, its use as a palaeoecological tool is in its infancy i...
Our work presents an updated overview of the Italian Middle Pleistocene records of hippopotamuses, including the two species Hippopotamus antiquus and Hippopotamus amphibius. In addition to reviewing several well-known fossils in the literature, a la...
The Gulf of Corinth is a semi-isolated basin in central Greece interrupting the Pindus Mountain Range, which nowadays is a biodiversity hotspot. Considering its key location, deep drilling was carried out within the International Ocean Discovery Prog...
This is an updated contribution to the Quaternary geology and paleontology from central-western Argentina, focused on San Luis Province. It is mostly based on unpublished data; only some fossils had previously been briefly mentioned in broader faunal...
The climatostratigraphic scale of the Upper Middle Pleistocene in the northwest of the East European Plain contains a number of controversial issues, one of which is the position of the Likhvin (Holstein) Interglacial and lesser warm (interstadial) c...
Starting roughly 50,000 years ago, the Arctic region of East Siberia remained continuously populated by groups of anatomically modern humans including the most uncomfortable episodes in the development of the late Quaternary environment; for some of...
Well-preserved Quaternary sedimentary sequences in the central coast of Ecuador have provided sufficient relevant information for paleogeographic reconstruction and climatic evolution, from stratigraphic, geochemical, and biological analysis. The Jar...
The Middle Pleistocene was characterized by the presence in continental Europe of at least two different species of hippopotamus: Hippopotamus antiquus and H. amphibius. Although suspected, the presence of both hippopotamuses in the same geographical...
This research presents an in-depth analysis of large mammal remains first discovered in 1932 in the archaeological area of ancient Rome, central Italy, during the work for the opening of Via dell’Impero (VFI). This work describes the faunal ass...
The challenging task of correctly estimating the body size of prehistoric hominins from footprint dimensions has been a matter of long debate, but researchers are still divided about the best methodological approach for obtaining compelling estimates...
The Vallparadís Section encompasses various geological layers that span a significant chronological range, extending from the latest Early Pleistocene to the early Middle Pleistocene, covering a timeframe from approximately 1.2 to 0.6 Ma. This...
We examined lithic artifacts from the late Neanderthal site Sesselfelsgrotte (Bavaria, Germany) in order to evaluate the possibility of fire use and intentional flint heat treatment performed by late Neanderthals. We analyzed 1113 flint pieces from t...
It has been proposed that suids were absent from Europe during the post-Olduvai to pre-Jaramillo Early Pleistocene (from less than 1.8 to more than 1.2 Ma) and that their “re-appearance” in the late Early Pleistocene would mark the end of...
Lakes are threatened by contemporary climate change and human activities. Paleohydrological records provide important evidence for developing scenarios for future changes in the availability of freshwater resources. This study presents a synthesis of...
A high-resolution multiproxy sedimentary record comprising pollen, charcoal, trace element, stratigraphy and particle size data is used to reveal environmental changes from the mangrove ecosystem at Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar, Tanzania, over the last 5000...
New rhino remains recovered from Cova del Rinoceront (Castelldefels, Barcelona) confirm the presence of Stephanorhinus hundsheimensis (Toula, 1902) at the site and the taxon’s persistence until the late Middle–early Upper Pleistocene in E...
This paper presents palynological data obtained from a trench excavated at the Neolithic pile-dwelling archaeological site of Palù di Livenza (northeastern Italy). The site is in a wetland located in a tectonic basin at the foot of the Cansigl...
During the last forty years, the use of strontium isotopes in archaeology and biogeochemical research has spread widely. These isotopes, alone or in combination with others, can contribute to trace past and present environmental conditions. However,...
(1) Background: despite the fact that nowadays the genus Vulpes Frisch, 1775, is the most diverse among extant Canidae, its fossil record is utterly scarce, especially in the Asian Pliocene. The sparse nature of this record further complicates the re...
This research focuses on the recent pollen image of several vegetation types in NW Italy. In 201 arboreal, shrubby, and herbaceous plant populations, pollen samples were taken from moss polsters, and the corresponding vegetation was recorded using th...
In central Italy, the Charterhouse of Calci hosts the Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa. This monumental monastery was founded in 1366 by Carthusian monks. The Charterhouse has experienced various transformations over the centuries, un...
The vegetation history of the Texas Gulf Coastal Plain in the Holocene is considered according to pollen evidence from three coring sites where both terrestrial and marine ecology are reconstructed. These pollen sites record oscillations in the limit...
The objective of our work was to reconstruct transgressive-regressive events in the Northern Caspian Sea during the Khazarian epoch of its Pleistocene history to determine the natural conditions of the development of the basins and to assess their re...
The timing, cause, and magnitude of mammalian extinctions during the African Middle Pleistocene remain largely unresolved. The demise of Elephas/Palaeoloxodon recki, a lineage that had a great geographic and temporal span, represents a particula...
The study of rare earth elements (REEs) in marine sediments is a powerful geochemical tool for determining depositional processes and sediment provenance, as well as for understanding paleoenvironmental changes. In this context, we present REE, some...
To study the long-term hydroclimate variability in the Satluj Basin, streamflow data was reconstructed using tree-ring width datasets from multiple taxa available from the Kullu Valley, western (Indian) Himalaya. Five ring-width tree-ring chronologie...
Buried river valleys from the Neogene–Quaternary time are widespread throughout the Middle Volga region of the Russian Plain. They have been studied for a long period, since the 1940s, with the last major generalizations dating back to the 1980...
The geomorphic expression of active faulting and distinction of paleoseismic events in areas that are rapidly obscured by erosion/sedimentation still remains a considerable scientific problem. The present article discusses the revealing of surface fa...
Considering the biomechanical and cognitive aspects involved in tool manipulation, hand size emerges as a critical factor. Males, on average, exhibit greater grip strength attributed to larger hand dimensions. Beyond mere physical factors, cognitive...
Lake Kolon (Hungary), situated in the middle of the Turjánvidék area between the saline lakes of the Danube valley and the Homokhátság, is one of the most significant natural aquatic habitats in the Danube–Tisza Inte...
Seven published and four new pollen records from well-dated sediment cores from six Pleistocene and Holocene maar structures located in the Eifel, Germany, are combined to a pollen stack that covers the entire last 132,000 years. This stack is comple...
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