Reply to Ronchitelli and Aureli "Comments on San Bernardino Cave (Italy) and the Appearance of Levallois Technology in Europe: Results of a Radiometric and Technological Reassessment"

Andrea Picin1,2,3, Marco Peresani 4 , Christophe Falguères 5, Giulia Gruppioni 4,5, Jean-Jacques Bahain 5

1 Neanderthal Museum, Mettmann, Germany,
2 Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), Tarragona, Spain,
3 Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Àrea de Prehistòria, Tarragona, Spain,
4 Universitá di Ferrara, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Sezione di Scienze Preistoriche e Antropologiche, Ferrara, Italy,
5 Département de Préhistoire du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, UMR7194 Paris, France


We are grateful that Ronchitelli and Aureli have taken the time to respond to our paper. We reply to their comments on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis.

The emergence of Levallois technology during the late Middle Pleistocene is an important issue in Paleolithic archaeology for the overlapping of different techno-complexes that has made very difficult the understanding of its introduction in the archaeological record. The paper aims to resume the important aspects of the appearance of Levallois in Europe adding the new data of the radiometric and technological reassessment of the lower units of San Bernardino Cave. In our study has been synthetized a large bibliography related with the archaeological materials attributed to the chronological range between MIS 9 and MIS 6. In order to resume this vast amount of informations, some concepts that Ronchitelli and Aureli claim to be concise, has been voluntary summarize and inserted in the introduction for a fair understanding of the topic to the readers.

In the section “Discussion” (line 209-316), the Italian fossil record discussed are: the mandible and teeth of Visogliano rockshelter, the Ceprano calvarium, the cranial and post-cranial elements of Castel di Guido, the parietal bone from Casal de’ Pazzi, the femur and metatarsal from Sedia del Diavolo, the femoral shaft from Ponte Mammolo, the human remains of Lamalunga Cave (Altamura), the molar tooth of Poggio Cave and the infant mandible of the Molare rockshelter. Aside the humans remains from Sedia del Diavolo and Ponte Mammolo, found in deposits destroyed after 1935, the Ceprano calvarium and the complete skeleton of Lamalunga Cave (Altamura), the human fossils discussed have been discovered in systematic archaeological excavations and the archaeological contexts dated with different methods. Moreover all these human remains, mentioned in our paper, have been analyzed and skeletal determined, and their comparison with Neanderthal specimens demonstrated their archaic features or their “transitional” characteristics towards the speciation to Neanderthals (Manzi et al., 2011). We consider that all the studies about these human fossils and the associated updated references are indeed reliable to be discussed in the paper.

The fortuitous discovery of the Ceprano calvarium during the work of a new road and the archaic morphology, lacking any Neanderthal traits and more close to Homo erectus, droved Ascenzi et al. (1996) to propose that the Ceprano calvarium was reworked from much older sediments. This hypothesis has been later questioned based on the absence of stringent and documented evidence of reworking (Manzi et al., 2010; Muttoni et al., 2009; Nomade et al., 2011). In Nomade et al., 2011 at page 456, the last more accurate sedimentary analysis of the stratigraphic sequence where the calvarium was found, is stated “As we found three xenocrysts in the K-layer ranging from 1.0 Ma to 420 ka in age, we should conclude that older reworked crystals are present in the dated horizon. However, we believe that the presence of only three reworked grains out of seventeen grains analyzed does not constitute a solid argument for substantial reworking in the K-layer. Older grains predating eruptive activity are common in volcanoclastic horizons and primary tephra deposits as a consequence of complex eruption dynamics (e.g. Walter, 1994; Deino et al., 1998). Moreover, we could find no sedimentological evidence to justify reworking of an object the size of the Ceprano calvarium (1050-1200 cm3; Bruner and Manzi, 2007), whereby the observed faint planar lamination and the very fine-grained lithology of the hominin level suggest deposition in low-energy environments.

The archaic morphology of the Ceprano calvarium suggested the chronological attribution close in age to the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary (c.a. 781 ka) (Bruner and Manzi, 2007). This hypothesis has been also questioned with direct dating of the sediment where the calvarium was found (Manzi et al., 2010; Muttoni et al., 2009; Nomade et al., 2011). In Nomade et al. 2011 at page 456 is stated ” In the absence of evidence of reworking, the simplest hypothesis is to consider the 40Ar/39Ar age of the K-layer (353±4 ka) as the closest direct age of H. Cepranensis. This age is statistically younger than the K/Ar age of 385±20 ka from the upper Liri lacustrine sequence reported (without analytical details) by Carrara et al. (1995; see also Muttoni et al., 2009) and considered by Manzi et al. 2010 as a minimum age for the calvarium deposition”. In base of these studies, we consider reliable the mention of Ceprano calvarium in the discussion and in the proposed model of our paper.

The human remains of Lamalunga Cave (Altamura) are located in a small chamber inside the cave and partly incorporated within the calcareous concretions. At line 249 of our paper we stated that the Neanderthal remains are undated. However we could not ignore its presence in the Italian paleoanthropological record. Recently the three dimensional topographic analysis of the cave permitted to obtain 3D images of the cranial and postcranial remains (Vacca and Pesce Delfino, 2004). Moreover the direct observation of the fossil permitted to determine a mixture of archaic and derived (i.e. Neanderthal) traits, which fits the range of variation displayed by the European hominins of the late Middle Pleistocene (Manzi et al., 2011). In based of these studies, we consider reliable the mention of the Neanderthal remains of Lamalunga Cave (Altamura) in the discussion and in the proposed model of our paper.

At the line 259 of our paper we do not make any association between chopping-tools and archaic technology. In fact we state “From a technological point of view, the lithic series of the lower units of San Bernardino are consistent with the general pattern of the emergence of the Levallois in the western Mediterranean, while the lithic assemblages of Monte delle Gioie, Sedia del Diavolo and Casal de’ Pazzi document the persistence of chopping tools associated with centripetal and bipolar technology (Mussi, 2002)”. In this sentence we report that the Levallois innovations emerged in the western Mediterranean are consistent with those identified in the lower units of San Bernardino and are completely absent in the lithic collections of the Aniene sites. Moreover the lithic assemblage of Torre in Pietra level d has been discussed at line 161 of the paper in which is stating “At Torre in Pietra level d the lithic assemblage has been interpreted as Levallois (Grimaldi, 1998) after a broadening of the criteria of Böeda (1994). The chronological attribution of this level has been largely debated and related firstly to the beginning of MIS5 on the base of geological correlations with the marine transgressions (Hearthy and Dai Pra, 1986; Malatesta, 1978) and successively to MIS7 (Caloi et al., 1998) and to MIS7 or MIS6 (Milli and Palombo, 2005) after the bio-chronological association of the faunal remains. The absence of direct dates of level d maintains uncertain its chronology that could cover a large temporal interval from MIS7 to MIS6. ”

Regarding the pivotal corrections, we apologize for any errors that could misinterpret the understandings of the Cilento sites. However we should stress that these argued mistakes were generated reporting informations from published papers. The striking example concerns the inexistence of Levallois technology in Cilento area from MIS 6 although in Ronchitelli et al., 2011 at pag. 108 at the end of Conclusion is stated “The Levallois method made its first occurrence in layers prior to MIS 5e in the series of Riparo del Poggio (Marina di Camerota, Salerno), close to Scario, where human occupation spans from MIS 6 to 5 (Boscato et al., 2009)”. In any case the attribution of the Cilento sites to MIS 5 reinforce our hypothesis that the introduction of the Levallois in the lower units of San Bernardino Cave significantly predates the adoption of this technology compared to the rest of the Italian territory and that the geographical barriers of the Alps and the seas might have contributed to the inhabitants of the Italian Peninsula’s isolation from the genetic flow and the technological innovation with other European populations. Furthermore in lines 72-73 we stated that the Bibliographic references are listed in the Dataset S1 and the reference Ronchitelli et al. 2011 is reported in the paper at nº 90.

The lithic industry of Poggio Cave level 6, correlated with the levels L-H of Poggio rockshelter, instead has been referred to Acheulean for the absence of Levallois technology, for the presence of archaic and not standardized characters of the flake production and for the presence of rough Quinson scrapers (Palma di Cesnola, 1996; Boscato et al., 2009). In Palma di Cesnola (1996) page 95 is stated “Although the absence of Levallois method is not index of archaism, the presence of stone tools of type Quinson, or of rare Tayac points as well as Clactonian notches, confer to the industry of level 9-3 of Poggio Cave a certain archaism (translate from French)”. In our opinion this archaism is more related with the previous technological tradition (Acheulean) rather than the innovations that characterized the development of Mousterian.

Lastly in the paper, the European terms for “cave” and “rockshelter” are all translated in English to give uniformity to the English content. Grotta Maggiore of San Bernardino, for example, has been turned into San Bernardino Cave. Since there is only one cave named Grotta Grande of Scario, without possibility of confusion with other adjacent caves with similar name, we proposed to call it Scario Cave, which is fairly understandable to the readers.


References

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