Early human peopling of Sicily: Evidence from the Mesolithic skeletal remains from Grotta d'Oriente

Abstract

Background: The site of Grotta d'Oriente, Island of Favignana, Sicily has yielded the complete skeleton of an adult female (OB) dated to the Mesolithic age. The cranial morphometry of this individual can provide us with some useful information about the peopling of Sicily in the Early Holocene period.

Aim: Morphological affinities of OB and other Sicilian Mesolithic specimens were assessed to verify hypotheses concerning the early peopling of Sicily.

Subjects and methods: Craniofacial metric data were employed in a comparative analysis with European Upper Palaeolithic (UP), Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Copper/Bronze age samples, and contemporary Italians. Both a model-free and a model-bound approach were used not only to calculate craniometric distances, but also to assess the role played by gene flow and drift to produce the resulting pattern of variations and relationships.

Results: A Sicilian Mesolithic (SM) sample, including OB, resulted morphologically very close to an Italian Late UP comparative group. A general similarity among Western/Central European UP and Mesolithic groups was also detected.

Conclusion: Intense gene flow among hunter–gatherer populations accounts for close resemblances among various UP and Mesolithic groups. The beginning of a regional characterization is suggested by the morphological similarity between Italian Late UP and SM, and by decreasing gene flow among populations during the transition from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic period.

Keywords::

• Sicilian Mesolithic
• craniofacial morphometry
• multivariate statistics

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous referee for advice on statistical analysis and very helpful comments; Agata Villa – The ‘Museo Archeologico Regionale A. Salinas’ Palermo for access to the Grotta d'Oriente materials and skeletal remains; Marcello Mannino and Michael Richards (Max Plank Institute, Leipzig) for unpublished data on Absolute Chronologies and helpful comments; Daria Petruso for critical reading; Barbara Picone for help in the preparation of the manuscript; and R.M. Fleming for her precious help in the editing and post-referee stages. A special thank goes to Teresa Pedone who performed a very careful revision of the English prose.

All authors contributed to the research: G.D. planned and performed statistical analysis; R.D., A.M. and L.S. performed skeletal analysis and collected measures and anthropological parameters; G.D., S.D. and L.S. analysed data; G.D. and L.S. designed the research and wrote the paper.

Declaration of interest: The research was funded under a Università di Palermo – 2005 Funds – awarded to L.S. The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.