Dermestid pupal chambers on Late Pleistocene faunal bones from Cava Muracci (Cisterna di Latina, central Italy): Environmental implications for the central Mediterranean basin during MIS 3

Autor: Anna Neri, Marco Doddi, Daniel Martín-Vega, Mario Federico Rolfo, Maurizio Gatta, Germano Scevola, Leonardo Salari, Eileen Jacob, Federica Valentini
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. 35:102780
ISSN: 2352-409X
DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102780
Popis: Cava Muracci (Cisterna di Latina, central Italy) is a complex of seven karst caves located in the Pontine Plain region. One of them, denominate Area 3, displayed a well-preserved Late Pleistocene deposit dating from 35 ka BP and older containing abundant mammal remains and cave hyena coprolites. This work presents the recent discovery from this deposit of fossil bones exposing dermestid pupal chambers and the opportunity these offered to support and improve, with high-resolution inferences, a previous environmental reconstruction based on faunal assemblage and pollen from coprolites. Moreover, ichnological analyses also shed light on some of the post-depositional agents which affected remains within the cave. This paper encourages the valuable support of palaeoichnology, a little exploited and undervalued discipline, to archaeological and palaeoenvironmental studies.
Databáze: OpenAIRE