Under the direction of Dr. Fiona Marshall, MS Francesca Alhaique will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will analyze archaeological faunas collected during the excavation of a series of six cave sites located on the edges of ancient lake Fucino in Abruzzo, Central Italy. Taken together the sites span the time period between 18,000 and 10,000 years ago and thus document the very cold period at the end of the last glaciation and the transition to warmer Holocene climatic conditions. Occupation in the region appears continuous and in contrast to most other inhabited portions of Europe, stone tool industries remain relatively unchanged over this period. Thus it seems likely that a single cultural group was present throughout and the complication of possible population replacement can be discounted. MS Alhaique shall document changes in settlement and subsistence strategy over this time. Many archaeologists have argued that within Europe (and in other parts of the world as well), the Pleistocene-Holocene transition was marked by a change in which hunting and gathering groups became more sedentary, and shifted their subsistence focus from a limited number of large mammal species to a broader range which included smaller animals and birds. However careful faunal analysis of relevant materials has rarely been conducted and other factors, such as age dependent selective destruction of smaller more fragile bones has not been considered. In her work, MS Alhaique will analyze the fauna from the six Fucino sites. Since these have already been identified in most instances to a species level, she will focus on human modification to the materials to determine which bones result from human agency and on natural destructive factors which may serve to distort the sample. She will also reconstruct season of death since this sheds light on length of site occupation. Seasonality can be determined to the study of migratory species and through cementum analysis of mammal teeth. The stage for the Neolithic Revolution - the domestication of plants and animals - was set during the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. The (supposed) increased focus on smaller species, the apparent increase in sedentarization and population density all foreshadow later developments. MS. Alhaique's research will provide additional insight into the process. It will provide useful data on an important archaeological region and assist in training a promising young scientist.
