On the devil's tracks: unexpected news from the Foresta ichnosite (Roccamonfina volcano,central Italy) |
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| Authors: | Adolfo Panarello Maria Rita Palombo Italo Biddittu Mauro Antonio Di Vito Gennaro Farinaro Paolo Mietto |
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| Institution: | 1. Laboratorio di Ricerche Storiche e Archeologiche dell'Antichità, Dipartimento di Scienze Umane, Sociali e della Salute, Università degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, Italy;2. IGAG_CNR, c/o Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, Italy;3. Istituto Italiano di Paleontologia Umana, Convitto Nazionale Regina Margherita, Anagni (FR), Italy;4. Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, sezione di Napoli Osservatorio Vesuviano, Napoli, Italy;5. Piazza Umberto I 19, Tora e Piccilli, Italy;6. Dipartimento di Geoscienze, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padova, Italy |
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| Abstract: | The Foresta ichnosite is well known for preserving some of the oldest human fossil footprints recorded in Europe so far. This research aims to: i) describe new footprints that are larger than those already reported, some of which form a new trackway that moves in the opposite direction to all the others; ii) announce the discovery of some stone tools also in the surroundings of the Foresta ichnosite. The new results increase the total number of human fossil footprints to at least 81, specify the direction and the number of footprints of Trackway C, and identify three new directions of walking at the site. More compelling and complete estimates of the dimensional range of all ichnological evidence enables us, furthermore, to estimate the number of trackmakers walking on the trampled surface as a minimum of five, one of them likely being an adult male. The general shape of all the recorded footprints suggests that the Foresta trackmakers share some similarities with those at Sima de los Huesos, and belong to the same taxonomical group as the Ceprano skull. All the new evidence enables us to better understand the presence of hominin populations in the Roccamonfina volcano area during the Middle Pleistocene. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
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| Keywords: | Homo heidelbergensis human footprints lithic implements Middle Pleistocene Roccamonfina volcano |
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