Descrizione del progetto
Cosa ci separa dai neanderthaliani
L’inferiorità comportamentale dei nostri cugini più prossimi, i Neanderthal, rispetto agli esseri umani moderni rimane una tesi supportata da numerosi scienziati. Tuttavia, recenti ricerche archeologiche e genetiche suggeriscono il contrario. Il progetto BACBONE, finanziato dall’UE, affronterà questo problema con un metodo unico e interdisciplinare che combina la tafonomia ossea con pratiche di sussistenza. Il progetto si concentra per la prima volta su una piccola frazione ossea associata allo studio microscopico delle alterazioni delle strutture ossee interne (istotafonomia). BACBONE eseguirà esperimenti forensi e stabilirà un database di riferimento, mapperà le alterazioni istotafonomiche tra i principali gruppi di neanderthaliani ed esseri umani della prima età moderna provenienti da Bulgaria e Francia e testerà le differenze tra le pratiche di sussistenza dei neanderthaliani e quelle degli esseri umani moderni.
Obiettivo
The role of behavioural differences in the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans remains a fundamental issue in human evolution. While recent archaeological and genetic studies have challenged ideas of Neanderthal behavioural inferiority, up-to-date assessments of differences in subsistence behaviour are still sparse. BACBONE fills this gap with a unique, interdisciplinary approach to bone taphonomy and subsistence practices 50,000-40,000 years ago, a time when both Neanderthals and modern humans were present in Europe.
Subsistence reconstructions typically focus on larger, identifiable animal bone fragments and visible surface modifications. BACBONE combines, for the first time, a focus on the small bone fraction, now identifiable through Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), with the microscopic study of alterations to bone inner structures (histotaphonomy). This approach provides unique insights into patterns of carcass deposition and processing and has three objectives. First, forensic experiments and a reference database will provide essential background on micro-scale taphonomy. Second, histotaphonomic alterations will be mapped across key Neanderthal and early modern human assemblages from France and Bulgaria, combining the high through-put capacity of microtomography (micro-CT, virtual histology) with hard tissue histology. Third, interdisciplinary dataset integration will test for differences in Neanderthal and modern human subsistence practices at an assemblage and broader European scale.
BACBONE will significantly advance methods in Palaeolithic archaeology and form the core of a new research programme at the interface between archaeology, biological anthropology and forensic science. Necessary training and expertise are exclusively available at the University of Kent (UK) and BACBONE will add competitiveness to European research, forging new transnational collaborations and establishing innovative, multi-methodological research excellence.
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Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinatore
CT2 7NZ Canterbury, Kent
Regno Unito