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Melka Kunture: tecniche digitali per l'archeologia preistorica
No full textLa musealizzazione del sito di Melka
Kuntu-re rappresenta la conclusione di
40 anni di ricerche e scavi compiuti
dalla Missione Archeologica Francese
diretta da Jean Chavaillon tra il 1965 e il
1995 e dalla Missione Archeologica Italiana
dell'Università di Roma "La Sapienza" e del
Ministero degli Affari Esteri, diretta da Marcello
Piperno a partire dal 1999 e tuttora in corso.
L'estensione del sito, la sua lunga sequenza
culturale (1.7-0.2 milioni di anni) insieme alla
mOlteplicità e varietà delle situazioni
archeologiche presenti nelle sue diverse fasi
fanno di Melka Kunture un complesso
straordinario e unico, paragonabile soltanto alla
Gola di Olduvai in Tanzania
New researches on the ”Altamura man”: morphology of the scapular glenoid cavity of a Neanderthal skeleton
No full textIn 1993 an archaic (i.e., non modern) human skeleton was discovered inside the Lamalunga karstic system, in the countryside nearby Altamura, Southern Italy (Bari, Puglia).
The conditions of preservation of the skeleton are exceptional, so that each bony element belonging to a single adult male are virtually preserved. Most of the visible skeletal features – observed with the bones still in situ – are close to the Neanderthal morphology (e.g., Manzi 2011).
In the past couple of decades, unfortunately, with the exception of some photographic and laser 3D documentations (eg, Pesce-Delfino and Vacca 1993a, 1993b, 1994; Vacca and Pesce-Delfino, 2004; Vacca, 2006; Manzi et al. 2010a), no direct studies have been carried out so far on the Altamura skeleton, due to the fact that its remains are yet incorporated within a curtain of calcite concretions of various thickness, which prevent from any direct intervention and hide the genuine morphology of bones and teeth. It follows that the international scientific community has been less and less concerned about this important finding and its significance for human evolution.
However, in 2008-2009 a new scientific endeavour coordinated by a new commission of experts (appointed by the Direzione Re-
gionale per i Beni Culturali e Pa-esaggistici della Puglia, in col-laboration with the Soprinten-denza per i Beni Archeologici della Puglia and assisted by speleo-logists of the Centro Altamura-no Ricerche Speleologiche) allowed to perform a survey in
the cave with the aim to physically remove a skeletal fragment to be used for high-quality investigations (including aDNA extraction and dating attempts). The choice of the specimen to be extracted fell among those identified after a previous photographic recognition (Micheli et al. 1996) within the small empty space behind the so called “apse of man” (i.e., the small chamber where the main skeletal remains are enclosed). This choice was justified as follows (Manzi et al. 2010b): 1) the need to obtain a bony element with a minimum contamination due to the human presence in the cave after the discovery; 2) the need to not touch (as requested by the Authorities) the human skeletal remains enclosed in the apse; 3) the relative simplicity of sampling, intrinsic to the fact that the selected specimen appeared to lie without any contact with concretions like those present on the “apse of man”.
The fossil specimen was removed from the cave in sterile condition and revealed to be free from any important calcite concretions; it represents a portion of the right scapula, where the glenoid cavity (showing only a modest fracture along the axillo-ventral margin), the neck, and both the roots of the acromion and the coracoid process are preserved.
After the extraction, while maintaining sterile conditions, the portion of scapula was subjected to professional photographic documentation and medical tomographic scan (CT), performed in order to preserve its morphology before it was submitted to paleogenetic and dating analyses. A total of 119 slices in DICOM format were recorded with a resolution of 0.25 mm and an increment of slice of 0.65 mm. From these, 3D high-resolution (mm slicing 0.25) digital and stereolithograpic replicas were also obtained.
The virtual reproduction was analyzed with ordinary morphometric methods, using the length (GAL), the breadth (GAB), and the maximum depth (GFD) of the glenoid cavity, selected as variables to be compared with data available from the literature (Vrba 1979; Churchill and Trinkaus 1990; Carrettero et al. 1997); comparative samples include: A. africanus (STS 7), H. heidelbergensis (Atapuerca - Sima de los Huesos), H. neanderthalensis (Near-Eastern and European Würmian Neanderthals), and H. sapiens (Upper Paleolithic and recent) specimens.
A 2D geometric morphometrics a-nalysis was also performed on the outline of the gle-noid cavity, using 60 sliding landmarks and semilandmarks,
treated according to the methodology described in Di Vincenzo and colleagues (2012). The Altamura glenoid cavity was compared with those of 66 specimens belonging to the following OTUs: A. africanus, H. floresiensis, H. georgicus (Dmanisi), H. heidelbergensis (Atapuerca SH), H. neanderthalensis, H. sapiens (Upper Paleolithic and recent), having distinguished the Neanderthal sample from Krapina (> 100 ka) from the European Würmian and Near-Eastern Neanderthals.
Overall, the results of these morphometric analyses (see figures) show that the scapula from Altamura – as regards both metric (GAB/GAL ratio and GFD) and geometric (shape) available variables – falls within or in continuity with the variability of H. neanderthalensis, in accordance with general observations on the morphology of the skeleton still in situ. In addition, phenetic relationships obtained from the Euclidean distances of the Procruste’s coordinates of the glenoid outline intercept an additional phylogenetic signal, suggesting the scapula from Altamura as interposed between the early Neanderthals from Krapina and more derived Neanderthal samples.
References: Carretero J.M. et al. 1997. Journal of Human Evolution 33:357-408 – Churchill S.E., Trinkaus E. 1990. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 83:147-160 – Di Vincenzo F. et al. 2012. Journal of Human Evolution 62:274-285 – Manzi G. et al. 2010a. DiRe, Direzione Regionale BCA della Puglia 2:35-39 – Manzi G. et al. 2010b. DiRe, Direzione Regionale BCA della Puglia 2:41-46 – Manzi G. et al. 2011. Quaternary Science Reviews 30:1420-1438 – Micheli M. et al. (a cura di). 1996. L'Uomo di Altamura e la Grotta di Lamalunga ABACO, Forlì. Pesce Delfino V., Vacca E. 1993a. Rivista di Antropologia 71:249-257 – Pesce Delfino V., Vacca E. 1993b. Anthropologie (Brno) 31:157-158 – Pesce Delfino V., Vacca E. 1994. Human Evolution 9:1-9 – Vacca E. 2006. Ricerche Speleologiche 1:28-54 – Vacca E., Pesce Delfino V. 2004. Collegium Antropologicum 28:113-119 – Vrba E.S. 1979. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 51:117-129
Filling the gap. Human cranial remains from Gombore II (Melka Kunture, Ethiopia; ca. 850 ka) and the origin of Homo heidelbergensis
Get PDFAfrican archaic humans dated to around 1,0 Ma share morphological affinities with Homo ergaster and appear distinct in cranio-dental morphology from those of the Middle Pleistocene that are referred to Homo heidelbergensis. This observation suggests a taxonomic and phylogenetic discontinuity in Africa that ranges across the Matuyama/Brunhes reversal (780 ka). Yet, the fossil record between roughly
900 and 600 ka is notoriously poor. In this context, the Early Stone Age site of Gombore II, in the Melka Kunture formation (Upper Awash, Ethiopia), provides a privileged case-study. In the Acheulean layer
of Gombore II, somewhat more recent than 875±10 ka, two large cranial fragments were discovered in 1973 and 1975 respectively: a partial left parietal (Melka Kunture 1) and a right portion of the frontal
bone (Melka Kunture 2), which probably belonged to the same cranium. We present here the first detailed description and computer-assisted reconstruction of the morphology of the cranial vault pertaining to these fossil fragments. Our analysis suggest that the human fossil specimen from Gombore II fills a phenetic gap between Homo ergaster and Homo heidelbergensis. This appears in agreement with the chronology of such a partial cranial vault, which therefore represents at present one of the best available candidates (if any) for the origin of Homo heidelbergensis in Africa
Moncel et al. - Notarchirico. L'Acheuleano piu antico di Italia. Campagna di scavo 2022
No full textInternational audienceIl sito di Notarchirico (Venosa, Basilicata) presenta un insieme eccezionale di depositi vulcano-sedimentari nei quali sono conservati più livelli di occupazione umana. Gli scavi di Marcello Piperno negli anni 1980-1990 hanno messo in luce una sequenza stratigrafica di 7 livelli archeologici, i cui depositi sono in gran parte legati all'attività stratovulcanica del Monte Vulture
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Éditorial
Get PDFLes articles de ce Bulletin reflètent fidèlement les activités des chercheurs et des ITA du Centre. Florence Heyman, dont on attend Le Crépuscule des lieux nous livre quelques secrets de son enquête sur les juifs de Cernowitz. Trois collègues ayant bénéficié de « mois chercheurs » nous communiquent chacun un aspect de leurs recherches : le professeur Marcello Piperno (Université de Turin) sur le site de Meika Kunture en Éthiopie, Marie-Hélène Moncel (Institut de Paléontologie Humaine) sur les..
Editorial
Get PDFThe articles in this issue of the Bulletin provide an accurate reflection of the work being conducted by Center researchers and associates. Florence Heymann, whose “Crépuscule des lieux” will be published shortly, reveals some of the secrets of her survey of the Jews of Czernowitz. Three colleagues, each of whom were recipients of a “researcher's month” grant, write on one facet of their work: Professor Marcello Piperno (University of Turin) on the Melka Kunture site in Ethiopia, Marie-Hélène..
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