Ricerc@Sapienza

The main objective of the project is to acquire novel data about the character of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene human occupation of the "Danube corridor" assumed to be one of the main axis for hominin dispersals throughout early prehistory -- from the dispersal of modern humans to the arrival of agriculture. This will be accomplished by investigating the karstic region of the Danube Gorges in the north-central Balkans characterized by numerous caves and rockshelters as key repositories of human occupation histories throughout the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. The region is also uniquely dotted by more than a dozen open-air Early Holocene Mesolithic forager sites along the banks of the Danube in present-day Romania and Serbia. A recently revised chronology for the Upper Danube region confirms previous suggestions that the "Danube corridor" played an important role as one of the main axis for the dispersal of Homo sapiens. Oase Cave modern human fossils discovered in the immediate hinterland area of the Danube Gorges in Romania have been directly AMS-dated to c. 42,500--38,500 cal BP. Within the same region, recent research led by the PI brought to light occupation deposits with tools attributable to Protoaurignacian at TT Cave. These deposits are dated to c. 41--37,000 cal BP and are broadly contemporaneous with the human remains from Oase Cave. At another site, Dubocka-Kozja Cave, situated in the immediate hinterland of the Danube Gorges, the PI excavated abundant flint tools and debitage characterized as a Levallois-derived Late Mousterian currently dated to c. 40,500--37,000 cal BC, also containing a younger horizon dating to the Gravettian period, c. 30,000 cal BP. The character of Early Holocene forager occupation in the same region will be investigated at the Mesolithic site of Vlasac (c. 11500--8000 cal BC) where, during the 2019 and 2020 excavations led by the PI, a unique burial association of articulated skeletons of a human and a pig was found.