Research compendium for 'A pre-Campanian Ignimbrite techno-cultural shift in the Aurignacian sequence of Grotta di Castelcivita, southern Italy'

Research compendium for 'A pre-Campanian Ignimbrite techno-cultural shift in the Aurignacian sequence of Grotta di Castelcivita, southern Italy' 

Compendium DOI: 

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10639553

The content available at the above provided URL will reproduce the results as documented in the first paper's submission. Instead, the files hosted at https://github.com/ArmandoFalcucci/Castelcivita-Aur-Techno represent the developmental versions and might have undergone modifications since the paper's publication.

Maintainer of this repository:

Armando Falcucci (armando.falcucci@uni-tuebingen.de; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3255-1005) 

Submitted paper:

Armando Falcucci, Simona Arrighi, Vincenzo Spagnolo, Matteo Rossini, Owen Higgins, Brunella Muttillo, Ivan Martini, Jacopo Crezzini, Francesco Boschin, Annamaria Ronchitelli, Adriana Moroni. A pre-Campanian Ignimbrite techno-cultural shift in the Aurignacian sequence of Grotta di Castelcivita, southern Italy. In preparation (2024).

Abstract:

The Aurignacian is the first European technocomplex assigned to Homo sapiens identified across a wide geographic extent. Although archaeologists have identified marked chrono-cultural shifts within the Aurignacian mostly by examining the techno-typological variations of stone tools, unraveling the underlying processes driving these changes remains a significant scientific challenge. Scholars have, for instance, hypothesized that the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) super-eruption and the climatic deterioration associated with the onset of Heinrich Event 4 had a substantial impact on European foraging groups. The technological shift from the Protoaurignacian to the Early Aurignacian is regarded as an archaeological manifestation of adaptation to changing environments. However, some of the most crucial regions and stratigraphic sequences for testing these scenarios have been overlooked. In this study, we delve into the high-resolution stratigraphic sequence of Grotta di Castelcivita in southern Italy. Here, the Uluzzian is followed by three Aurignacian layers, all sealed by the eruptive units of the CI. Employing a comprehensive range of quantitative methods—encompassing attribute analysis, 3D model analysis, and geometric morphometrics—we demonstrate that the technological features commonly associated with the Early Aurignacian developed well before the deposition of the CI tephra. Our study provides thus the first direct evidence that the volcanic eruption played no role in this cultural process. Furthermore, we show that local paleo-environmental proxies do not correlate with the identified patterns of cultural continuity and discontinuity. Consequently, we propose alternative research paths to explore the role of demography and regional trajectories in the development of the Upper Paleolithic.

Keywords:

Early Upper Paleolithic; Italy; Aurignacian; lithic technology; geometric morphometrics; 3D model analysis; cultural evolution; human-environment interaction; open science.

Overview of contents and how to reproduce:

Within this repository, various folders house data (data), code (script), and output files (output) pertinent to the paper. The data folder encompasses the complete dataset, the core dataset, and 2D outline coordinates utilized for the geometric morphometrics study. To replicate the results, download the entire repository and employ Castelcivita-Aur-Techno.Rproj and open the folder script, following the numbered folder structure. For ensuring reproducibility, the renv package (v. 1.0.3) was utilized, following the procedures detailed in its vignette. All analyses and visualizations in the paper were conducted using R 4.3.1 on Microsoft Windows 10.0.19045 (64-bit). As the necessary packages are available in the renv folder, they are not explicitly listed here.

Licenses:

Code: MIT (http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT), copyright holder: Armando Falcucci (2024).

Data and intellectual work: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), copyright holder: the authors (2024).