Ricerc@Sapienza

Diatomite deposits in the Sabatini Volcanic District (central Italy) represent valuable archives to investigate both Middle Pleistocene vegetation dynamics and geochemistry of proximal products of volcanic eruptions, which provide crucial geochronological markers for a large region of Southern Europe. We present a new pollen record from a diatomite deposit at Rignano Flaminio, attributed to MIS 13 based on two major eruptive events from Monti Sabatini: the Grottarossa Pyroclastic Sequence (513 ± 3 ka) and the Fall A unit (499 ± 3 ka).

The exceptionally well-preserved Neanderthal skeleton discovered in October 1993 within the Lamalunga cave near Altamura (Puglia, Italy) has been recently dated to a late Middle Pleistocene chronology, bracketed between 128.2 and 187.0 ka. Although the skeleton is still sealed in situ, in 2009 and 2015 a large part of its fragmentary right scapula was removed from the cave in three pieces, following a protocol aimed at preventing any biological contamination prior to aDNA extraction and analysis.