DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15430431
title: Research Compendium for 'Revisiting the Early Aurignacian in Italy: New Insights from Grotta della Cala'

description: Compendium DOI:
https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.15430432

 

The content available at the above provided Zenodo DOI reproduces the results as documented in the publication. The files hosted at https://github.com/ArmandoFalcucci/Cala-Aurignacian represent the developmental versions and might have undergone modifications since the paper's publication.



Maintainer of this repository:


Armando Falcucci (armando.falcucci@uni-tuebingen.de)



Published Paper:


Armando Falcucci, Keiko Kitagawa, Luc Doyon, Laura Tassoni, Tom Higham, Clarissa Domenici, Diego Dreossi, Jacopo Crezzini, Matteo Rossini, Stefano Benazzi, Ivan Martini, Francesco Boschin, Vincenzo Spagnolo, Adriana Moroni (2025) Revisiting the Early Aurignacian in Italy: New Insights from Grotta della Cala. Quaternary Science Reviews, 366: 109471. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109471



Abstract:


Grotta della Cala in southern Italy is a key archaeological site spanning from the Middle Paleolithic to the Bronze Age. In the stratigraphic sequence close to the cave entrance, numerous artifacts associated with Aurignacian occupations were uncovered, including both lithic and organic materials. However, earlier interpretations were limited by challenges in dating the Upper Paleolithic layers and a lack of modern analytical methods for characterizing the finds. Recent excavations have refined the site’s chronology and further explored the Aurignacian deposit. This study builds on this updated framework, offering an interdisciplinary reassessment that includes technological analyses of lithic assemblages and bone tools, along with a taxonomic examination of the marine shells. Many of these shells were intentionally perforated, suggesting symbolic behaviors linked to coastal resource exploitation. Lithic technology at the site is characterized by the systematic production of miniaturized bladelets from carinated cores, while osseous technology centers on the manufacture of split-based antler points, marking the southernmost occurrence of this tool type in Europe. The integration of new radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dating allows us to confidently assign all analyzed sub-layers to the Early Aurignacian, a significant finding, given that no other sites in the region securely postdate the Campanian Ignimbrite (~40,000 years ago). As such, Grotta della Cala is a crucial site for understanding the lifeways of Aurignacian foraging groups in the aftermath of this super-eruption and during Heinrich Stadial 4. Our comparative analysis of Early Aurignacian sites across Italy provides a clearer understanding of regional variability and continuity between 40,000 and 37,000 years ago, contributing to the broader debate on the biocultural dynamics of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe.



Keywords:


Early Upper Paleolithic; Henrich Stadial 4; Campanian Ignimbrite; Lithic Technology; Osseous Technology; Malacology; OSL and Radiocarbon Dating



Overview of contents and how to reproduce:


This repository contains data, code, and output files associated with the paper. The files are organized into the following directories:



data: Includes the complete dataset and the core dataset.

script: Contains the R scripts for data analysis and visualization.

output: Houses the generated outputs from the analysis, including figures, tables, and supplementary material.


To replicate the results from the paper, follow these steps:



Download the entire repository.

Open the Cala-Aurignacian.Rproj R project file.

Navigate to the script folder, where you will find the R scripts arranged in a numbered order for reproducibility.


For consistent results, the renv package (v. 1.0.3) was used, following the procedures outlined in its vignette. All analyses were performed using R 4.3.1 on Microsoft Windows 10.0.19045 (64-bit). Necessary packages are provided within the renv folder.



Licenses:


Code: MIT http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT, copyright holder: Armando Falcucci (2025).

Data and intellectual work: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), copyright holder: the authors (2025).