Uluzzian
{{Short description|Paleolithic culture in Italy and Greece}}
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The Uluzzian Culture is a transitional archaeological culture between the Middle Paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic, found in Italy and Greece.
A team led by archaeological scientist Katerina Douka has dated the Uluzzian as lasting from shortly before 45,000 to around 39,500 years before present (BP), at a similar date or slightly earlier than the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption.{{cite journal |last1=Douka |first1=Katerina |last2=Higham |first2=Thomas FG |last3=Wood |first3=Rachel |last4=Boscato |first4=Paolo |date=2014 |title=On the chronology of the Uluzzian |journal=Journal of Human Evolution |volume=68 |pages=1–13 |doi=10.1016/j.jhevol.2013.12.007 |pmid=24513033 }}{{registration required}}
Geographical extent: In Italy: Apulia (the Grotta del Cavallo and the Uluzzo cave), Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, Tuscany, and Fumane (the northernmost point).Peresani, M., 2012. Fifty thousand years of flint knapping and tool shaping across the Mousterian and Uluzzian sequence of Fumane cave. Quaternary International 247, 125–150 Outside of Italy, only in Argolis, Greece (the cave of Klissoura)."Klissoura cave" often appears in the literature, but the archaeologists themselves use the spelling "Klisoura" or the phrase "Cave 1 in Klisoura Gorge (Western Peloponnese)". Koumouzelis, M., Ginter, B., Koz1owski, J.K., Pawlikowski, M., Bar-Yosef, O., Albert, R.M., Litynska-Zajac, M., Stworzewicz, E., Wojtal, P., Lipecki, G., Tomek, T., Bochenski, Z.M., Pazdur, A., 2001. The early Upper Palaeolithic in Greece: the excavations in Klisoura cave. J. Archaeol. Sci. 28, 515–539.
Discovery
Excavations by 1963 Arturo Palma di Cesnola of the Grotta del Cavallo ("Cave of the Horse") in southern Italy uncovered the first remains later called "Uluzzian".{{cite journal |last1=Palma di Cesnola |first1=Arturo |date= 1964 |title=Seconda campagna di scavo nella grotta del Cavallo |journal=Riv. Sci. Preist. |pages=23–39 }} The cave is on the Salento peninsula in Apulia, overlooking the Gulf of Taranto. The only human remains were two deciduous teeth (Cavallo B and Cavallo C) from the Uluzzian deposit of Grotta del Cavallo identified as human by (Benazzi et al., 2011).{{cite journal |last1=Benazzi |first1=Stefano |last2=Katerina |first2=Douka |last3=Fornai |first3=Cinzia |last4=Bauer |first4=Catherine C. |date=2011 |title=Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behaviour |journal=Nature |volume=479 |issue=7374 |pages=525–528 |doi=10.1038/nature10617 |pmid=22048311 |bibcode=2011Natur.479..525B |s2cid=205226924 |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10617 |access-date=April 26, 2020|url-access=subscription }} These teeth, dated to 43,000–45,000 BP, are the oldest currently-known remains of modern humans in Europe.
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Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition
File:Stratigraphy Grotta di Fumane 5.jpg
The Uluzzian is one of several techno-complexes considered to be "transitional assemblages": Uluzzian, Châtelperronian, Szeletian, and Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician.{{cite journal |last1=Hublin |first1=J-J. |date= 2015 |title=The modern human colonization of western Eurasia: when and where? |journal=Quaternary Sci. Rev. |volume= 118 |pages=194–210 |doi= 10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.08.011|bibcode=2015QSRv..118..194H |doi-access=free |hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-0024-11F6-F |hdl-access=free }}
Culture
The Uluzzians made and used beads from shells of marine molluscs such as scaphopods, snails (Columbella rustica, Cyclope neritea), and other species.