[ad_1]
Evidence of exploration in a system of Italian caves sheds new light on the late behavior of stone-age humans as a group, especially when they explore new terrains.
The Bàsura cave in Toirano and its traces of human and animal fossils have been known since the 1950s, with the first studies conducted by the Italian archaeologist Virginia Chiappella. In the framework of this study, promoted by the Liguria Archaeological Heritage Office, researchers from Italy, Argentina and South Africa used several approaches to analyze human traces and identified for the first time rampant behaviors dating back some 14,000 years ago.
"In our study, we wanted to see how ancient humans have explored this fascinating cave system," says lead author Marco Romano, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. "More specifically, we looked at how many people entered the cave, whether they explored individually or in groups, their age, their gender, and the type of road they had once traveled inside. Cave."
To answer these questions, the multidisciplinary team studied 180 tracks from the cave, including footprints and handprints on the clay soil. They applied various modern dating methods, a software for analyzing the structure of tracks and different types of 3D modeling. "Together, these approaches allowed us to build a narrative of how humans came in and out of the cave and their activities once inside," says Romano.
The team determined that five people, including two adults, a teenager of about 11 years old and two children of three and six years old, had entered the cave barefoot and lit the way with wooden sticks. This suggests that young children were active members of the group at the end of the stone age, even when they were performing seemingly dangerous activities.
The researchers reported the first evidence of crawling in the footprints of a low tunnel – a route taken to access the inner part of the cave. The anatomical details in the footprints suggest that the explorers went barefoot to navigate this path.
During the analysis of the various handprints, the team discovered that some of them seemed "unintentional" and related only to the exploration of the cave, while others were more "intentional" and suggested that social or symbolic activities took place in the inner chambers. "So hunter-gatherers may have been motivated by fun activities during exploration, as well as by the simple need to find food," says Romano.
"Together, our results show that a varied approach to studying the traces of our ancestors can provide detailed information about their behavior," concludes senior author Marco Avanzini, head of the geology department at MUSE – Museum of Earth Sciences. Trento, Italy. "We hope our approach will be useful for painting similar images of how humans have behaved in other parts of the world and at different times."
ELIFE
Header Image – In Bàsura cave, a preliminary investigation into fossil traces is carried out on glossy leaves as a reference for more detailed analyzes. Credit: Isabella Salvador
 |
 |
Subscribe to the HeritageDaily newsletter
Click here
[ad_2]
Source link