Marco Peresani (Associate Professor of the University of Ferrara) will address the topic “Exploring the MP-UP transition in southern Europe. A view from the north of Italy”.
Among the big questions of similarities and difference between Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) in Western Eurasia is that of the significance of cultural innovations. This question plays a key role in interpreting the large set of differences expressed from the Final Mousterian, the transitional (Chatelperronian, Neronian, Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanovician, Szeletian, Bohunician, Uluzzian and others), and the Aurignacian technocomplexes. It is a matter of debate whether the relation between these differences and their makers is consistent; in recent years, some intriguing aspects have been unveiled from one of these cultural complexes, the Ulyzzian, spread across the Italian peninsula and in the south of the Balkans. The Uluzzian represents a distinctive industry, identified on the basis of small, crescent-shaped microliths, a combination of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic stone tool types, and variable incidence of splintered pieces associated with bone industries, perforated marine shells and mineral pigments. At Italian and Greek sites, the Uluzzian is best known from cave sedimentary sequences where it systematically overlies the Mousterian. At present, the Uluzzian is the only known transitional texhno-complex related exclusively to AMH in Europe, although doubts over the position of the dental remains found at Grotta del Cavallo have created intense debate, claiming for more cultural and taphonomic data from the transitional sequence in question.
Organisers:
Georgia Kourtessi-Philippakis – National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Νena Galanidou – University of Crete
A joint initiative of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the University of Crete (Departments of History and Archaeology), the Palaeolithic Seminar aims to bring Palaeolithic Archaeology closer to its specialist and wider audience. It aspires to become a forum where the results of recent work in the field and the latest theoretical trends within the discipline are presented and discussed.