Sineo Luca

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Farming was first introduced to Europe in the mid-seventh millennium BC, and was associated with migrants from Anatolia who settled in the southeast before spreading throughout Europe. Here, to understand the dynamics of this process, we analysed genome-wide ancient DNA data from 225 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe and surrounding regions between 12000 and 500 BC. We document a west–east cline of ancestry in indigenous hunter-gatherers and, in Eastern Europe, the early stages in the formation of Bronze Age steppe ancestry. We show that the first farmers of northern and western Europe dispersed through southeastern Europe with limited hunter-gatherer admixture, but that some early groups in the southeast mixed extensively with hunter-gatherers without the sex-biased admixture that prevailed later in the north and west. We also show that southeastern Europe continued to be a nexus between east and west after the arrival of farmers, with intermittent genetic contact with steppe populations occurring up to 2,000 years earlier than the migrations from the steppe that ultimately replaced much of the population of northern Europe.

Cattle domestication from wild aurochsen was among the most important innovations during the Neolithic agricultural revolution. The available genetic and archaeological evidence points to at least two major sites of domestication in India and in the Near East, where zebu and ...

The aim of this paper is to examine the fresh evidence retrieved in the early cemetery or 'archaic necropolis' (eighth to sixth century BC) on the island of Motya, one of the main Phoenician colonies in the Mediterranean. Because of its integrity and the large number of finds, the cemetery has been considered one of the most relevant sites for the study of early burial customs in the West. The absence of anthropological data, completely neglected in the past, was a major shortcoming of previous research. This failing is now being rectified by a new project of fieldwork and excavation undertaken on the island by a team from Palermo University. This report provides a close examination of the human remains from a group of 32 graves discovered during three seasons (2013–2015) in a combined archaeological and taphonomic perspective and contributes to shed light on the funerary practices of the Phoenicians in Sicily.

Summary
The vast wealth of cultural artifacts and ancient biological samples can today be investigated using a great variety of methods and technologies. The result is a growing diffusion of studies on DNA, isotopes and morphometrics, and the exponential growth of publications and bio-archaeological discoveries of inestimable value for different areas
of interpretation, such as phylogeny, history and archaeology. This paper describes the morphological and molecular study of a rare specimen of Felis from an Early Bronze Age horizon. The report offers the opportunity for a brief discussion on cat taming, on the origin of this practice and on the archaeological importance of this specimen for the reconstruction of taming practices in the Western Mediterranean Basin.

Riassunto
Il vasto patrimonio culturale di manufatti e di reperti biologici antichi può attualmente essere investigato con molte metodologie e tecnologie. Ne deriva una crescente diffusione di studi sul aDNA, isotopici e morfogeometrici e una crescita esponenziale delle pubblicazioni e dei risultati bio-archeologici di inestimabile valore per ambiti interpretativi
diversi, filogenetici, storici, archeologici. Il presente lavoro descrive uno studio morfologico e molecolare di un raro reperto di Felis proveniente da un orizzonte del Bronzo Antico. Il report offre per altro l’occasione per una breve disamina sull’addomesticamento del gatto, la provenienza di tale pratica e sull’importanza zooarcheologica della relazione con Homo nel Mediterraneo occidentale.

The relationship between genetic and linguistic diversification in human populations has been often explored to interpret some specific issues in human history. The Albanian-speaking minorities of Sicily and Southern Italy (Arbereshe) constitute an important portion of the ethnolinguistic variability of Italy. Their linguistic isolation from neighboring Italian populations and their documented migration history, make such minorities particularly effective for investigating the interplay between cultural, geographic and historical factors. Nevertheless, the extent of Arbereshe genetic relationships with the Balkan homeland and the Italian recipient populations has been only partially investigated. In the present study we address the genetic history of Arbereshe people by combining highly resolved analyses of Y-chromosome lineages and extensive computer simulations. A large set of slow- and fast-evolving molecular markers was typed in different Arbereshe communities from Sicily and Southern Italy (Calabria), as well as in both the putative Balkan source and Italian sink populations. Our results revealed that the considered Arbereshe groups, despite speaking closely related languages and sharing common cultural features, actually experienced diverging genetic histories. The estimated proportions of genetic admixture confirm the tight relationship of Calabrian Arbereshe with modern Albanian populations, in accordance with linguistic hypotheses. On the other hand, population stratification and/or an increased permeability of linguistic and geographic barriers may be hypothesized for Sicilian groups, to account for their partial similarity with Greek populations and their higher levels of local admixture. These processes ultimately resulted in the differential acquisition or preservation of specific paternal lineages by the present-day Arbereshe communities.

Incarbona, A., Agate, M., Arisco, G., Bonomo, S., Buccheri, G., Di Patti, C., et al. (2010). Ambiente e clima della Sicilia durante gli ultimi 20 mila anni. Il Quaternario - Italian Journal of Quaternary Sciences, 2010(23 (1)), 21-35. ... Ambiente e clima della Sicilia durante gli ultimi 20 mila ...

We present a thorough review of the knowledge on the climate and environment in Sicily over the last 20 000 years, taking into account results of several studies carried using terrestrial and marine records. We obtain a coherent framework of the most important changes succeeded in the island, even if some points need further investigation. All the reconstructions of surface temperatures of the seas and the air surrounding Sicily point out severe climatic conditions during the last glacial period. The steppe- and semisteppe-like vegetation pattern testifies, together with additional evidence from geochemical data of lacustrine evidence, markedly arid conditions. Fi-nally, significant episodes of sea level drop connected Sicily to the Italian Peninsula and favoured the dispersion of faunal elements from southern Italy. The transition between the last glacial and the Holocene was not characterized by a gradual warming but was punctuated by two abrupt suborbital climatic fluctuations: Bølling-Allerød (warm) and Younger Dryas (cold), as recognized in the sediments recovered close to the northern and southern coast of Sicily. A denser arboreal cover is possibly indicated by the occurrence of dormouse and Arvicola remains. Finally the sensitivity of Sicily to climate perturbations is demonstrated by the occurrence of repeated subtle climatic anomalies during the Holocene, including the Little Ice Age, also known from historical chronicles. Forests, woods and Mediterranean maquis developed in the early-middle Holocene. Thereafter was a general decline of arboreal vegetation, following a general aridification trend that seems to be a common feature in southern Europe and North Africa. Science Greek colonization (7th century before Christ), the landscape was intensively modelled for agriculture and breeding, leading to a significant loss of vegetation cover.

Encephalopathy in sheep was at first described in Ireland in 1732 and was called scrapie. Ancient DNA in archaeogenetics represents an effective method to evaluate the ancestral pedigree of living animals and track evolutionary changes occurred between the past and the present day. Since several point mutations are today widely described in modern scrapie, no data about both sequence and frequency are still available for the prion protein (PrP) gene in ancient breeds. In order
to evaluate whether the haplotypes distribution in ancient sheep differed from those of the modern population we evaluated polymorphism at four well know codons of the Prp Open Reading Frame. In the present work, we collected 37 medieval sheep bone remains found at the Calathamet
(n = 11), Palazzo Bonagia (n = 12) and Palazzo Steri (n = 14) Sicilians archeological sites and dated back between 9th - 15th century. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at codons 136, 141, 154 and 171 of the prion protein (PrP) were investigated using cycle sequencing. Sequenom Mass ARRAYiPLEX platform confirmed the results for 5 individuals out of 37. Cycle sequencing showed at all samples the AA136LL141RR154QQ171 (hereafter ALRQ/ALRQ) genotype except at 2 individuals showing the very susceptible genotype VLRQ/VLRQ (n = 1) and the resistant (ALRR/ALRR) (n = 1) respectively. Supported by a high incidence of susceptible genotype to prion infection we concluded that presumably scrapie was already widespread enough in the medieval Sicily.
Moreover, we described conceivable scenarios that could have underlain evolutionary changes in the medieval sheep population.

Summary — The modern mummies and the inner meaning of the double burial in Mediterranean
cultures have long been debated. In this paper we discuss a particular “collection” of ecclesiastical
bodies, mummified and displayed in a small mountain town of Sicily, Gangi, in the Madonie Mountains.
The bodies, dating back to the nineteenth century, mummified by pouring in the tradition of the time
and carefully dressed in robes, are exposed in the lower floor of the Chiesa Madre, in what the tradition
is called “fossa dei parrini” (pit of priests). The mummies, unlike other Sicilian and Mediterranean sites,
are accompanied by commemorative sonnet and death mask made of finish wax. The primary interest
of our study was aimed specifically at this particular manifestation of the double burial complex, which
lies in the representation of the face. The work expresses an examination of the concept of death
mask in antiquity and leads to the conclusion that the place, for its scenic values and sophistication of
ritual, should be designed to the ostentation and the consolidation of the image of the Church
and of the his power within the small rural society.

La campagna 2014 dell’Università di Palermo ha ampliato lo scavo nella necropoli arcaica (Zona N) ove, oltre alla trincea N15 (aperta nel 2013), è stata aperta una nuova trincea denominata N23. In entrambe le trincee sono stati rinvenuti numerosi reperti scheletrici il cui studio ha gettato nuova luce sui riti funerari praticati nell’ isola. Nel corso dell’ultima missione infatti in N15 e N23 sono stati ritrovati i resti di oltre 40 individui appartenenti a diverse classi d’età (fetali, infans, giovani e
adulti), inumati in fosse terragne o tombe, in sepolture sia singole che multiple. I pochi casi di incinerazione trovati mostrano ossa combuste ad una temperatura di circa 700°C; solo in un caso (locus 15070), dove sono stati ritrovati i resti di una pira molto estesa, sono state riscontrate ossa diagenizzate da temperature superiori ai 900°C. La maggior parte degli inumati del area quindi non è stata incinerata ma semplicemente seppellita dopo una probabile riduzione. Questi dati confermano che tale settore della necropoli non fosse dedicato esclusivamente all’inumazione di determinate classi d’età (le sepolture potevano contenere classi di età molto diverse) ma anche che le stesse sepolture (site nel terreno o in urne o ciste) oltre a poter contener più individui, avvenivano anche senza il preventivo rito dell’incinerazione. Queste differenze nel rituale possono essere spiegate, oltre che da contingenze puntuali (eventi di morte massiva e improvvisa), anche a diversa
provenienza etnica e a diverse culture insistenti sull’isola nel periodo.

La necropoli arcaica di Mozia è uno dei siti di maggior interesse per lo studio dei costumi funerari dei Punici. Malgrado ciò l’analisi antropologica delle oltre 300 sepolture rinvenute è stata in passato trascurata. In questo lavoro vengono esaminate le sepolture del settore orientale della necropoli arcaica (Zona N) ove, nel 2013 si sono aperte due trincee (N15 e N16). L’analisi antropologica ha consentito di stabilire il numero minimo ed l’età degli individui; nonché di valutare le procedure di incinerazione. Tra i dati ottenuti due casi sono caratterizzati dalla composizione mista del contesto funerario: il locus 15040 conteneva resti relativi ad un individuo infans e ad un adulto, la cista T.219 conteneva materiali relativi a due adulti e un infans. Le temperature di combustione sono risultate superiori ai 645 gradi C° in entrambi i casi. Dalla T.212 è stato studiato un infans, incinerato in modo parziale, inumato in una certa connessione anatomica, in posizione verticale con
il cranio adagiato sul fondo. Alla luce di questi dati è plausibile ipotizzare che questo settore dellanecropoli non fosse dedicato esclusivamente all’incinerazione di determinate classi di età e che le sepolture, contrariamente a quanto atteso, potevano contenere più individui, di classi di età molto diverse.

Vallone Inferno rock-shelter is an archaeological site located in the Madonie mountain range in Sicily. Archaeological excavation and research have provided a long prehistoric and historic sequence from the Neolithic to the medieval period, this being the most complete work in this area at present. In this paper we present the preliminary data provided by a multidisciplinary study based on pottery, lithic, human, faunal and plant remains. Stratigraphic studies have identified four complexes, of which complex 3 has provided almost all the archaeological remains. 14C AMS dates, obtained from four samples, place the human activities between 2601 cal BC and 644 cal AD. These dates are coherent with the cultural attribution of the ceramic and lithic remains. Macrofaunal and plant remains show a persistent use of the shelter for pastoral activities. Environmental data, obtained from microvertebrate and archaeobotanical remains, show the aridification and opening of the landscape from the base to the top of the sequence as a consequence of the human impact.

With the Chair of Anthropology at the University of Palermo, a preliminary survey was conducted at a cavity of tectonic origin called Zubbio (swallower) of Cozzo San Pietro - 298 meters above sea level, on Mount Catalfano (Bagheria) - so far known only for its speleological interest. After some visits during which several points of the cave were identified with a concentration of various finds, in May 2014 a first short excavation campaign was carried out in point A - a niche placed at a depth of -15.4 m, located in the S/E portion of the vast underground environment, raised by more than one meter compared to the floor of the cave and consequently less prone to the presence of accidentally fallen materials.