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**Astuto** · 16 January 2006, 02:09 PM

Nationalist sites have some interesting content but for the most part are filled with pure unobjective rubbish....

**Hetware** · 16 January 2006, 03:00 PM

I've been asking some of the same questions. The article discussing Armenian R1b hinted that it may be a residual trace left by the original migration of our R1b ancestors from Southeast Asia. The authors seemed to be suggesting the distant relationship between Armenian and other IE languages was, likewise, part of the residue. That seems to be way out of the timeframe for linguistic corelations, and is therefore hard to believe.

There are many possible scenarios which might explain the observed distribution. One of the big factors to consider is whether there was catastrophic flooding of the Black Sea around 5700 BCE. There are some very vocal opponents of the Ryan and Pitman model, but I have yet to see a comprehensive study that convinces me one way or another. All of the people I know of who have rejected the idea have demonstrated that they really don't understand it well.

It's very difficult for me to know what to make of the limited data available through the fixed queries such as "Recent Ethnic Origins" or "Haplotypgroup". For example, I have close matches to "Russian - Native Siberian" at a much higher frequency than "Russian". Unfortunately I am not told what percentage of "Russian" in the database is represented by "Russian - Native Siberian".

The simplistic arrow maps shown on the Genographic Project page fail to address the presence of R1b in Siberia, China, Anatolia and Armenia. There is some evidence suggesting the M207, M173, P25 and M17 mutations are far more recent than the 35,000 ybp Iberian refuge model would require. I'm talking more along the lines of 6,000 to 8,000 ybp.

I recently saw a discussion of the Basques suggesting the current population of Basque speakers may not be, in genetic terms, very representative of the original speakers of the language. I cannot say it was a well researched scholarly report, but it certainly did give me reason to consider alternatives to what I had been thinking. One of the suggestions was that Basque conservatives had imposed their language on some regions which were not originally Basque-speaking.

It does appear that the aggregate genetic background of the Basques is consistent with the view that they are somewhat of an ethnic isolate.

I really had little solid notion of what they look like, so I started searching for pictures on the web. I don't know if these are representative, but I'll have to say, these people look a whole lot more like me than do the majority of people in my neighborhood.

Berria.eus - Bisitak

http://www.berria.info/bisitak/bisitak.php

None of the pictures are close enough to show eye color, but they are certainly not all black-haired with dark complexions.

My REO hits show that I have several cousins in Northern Spain and Portugal, as well as in Latin America. OTOH, I have only one match for a Basque. He is one step removed on 12 markers. That may be an indication of the sample size, but in comparison to 5 Native Siberians at the same distance, I find it probable that I do not have recent Basque male ancestry.

**Astuto** · 16 January 2006, 03:15 PM

They look like Italians, Greeks, Spaniards...

**johnraciti** · 16 January 2006, 07:30 PM

I showed my wife those photos. We are both Sicilian-Italian.

We agree that - they look like Italians, Greeks, and Spaniards...

I have some Spanish genes; I am a Merlo, Serraino/Serrano, Zingali/Zingales. Both my wife and first daughter look Spanish. Where has my second daughter and I carry fair eyes & hair. My wife's father and maternal grandmother had green & blue eyes. My wife has very fair skin. Where my first daughter and I have the ability to tan better than my wife and second daughter.

**johnraciti** · 16 January 2006, 10:22 PM

R1b hg1 R1b3 R-M269: Nordic - Celtic - Saxon ?

Being R1b does not necessarily mean that your lineage is from Irish/Welsh/Cornish/Basque descent. R1b does make up a percentage of Scandinavia. In Norway and Denmark R1b values DYS390=24 and DYS391=11 are strong and match that of the Pyrenees/Welsh, etc. areas. Values of DYS390=23 and DYS391=11 tend to be Germanic and get more frequent towards the Netherlands.

Notes on Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1b

R1b (previously known as Hg1 and Eu18) is the most prolific haplogroup in Europe and its frequency changes in a cline from west (where it reaches a saturation point of almost 100% in areas of Western Ireland) to east (where it becomes uncommon in parts of Eastern Europe and virtually disappears beyond the Middle East). A R1b haplotype (a set of marker scores indicative of the haplogroup) is very difficult to interpret in that they are found at relatively high frequency in the areas where the Anglo - Saxon and Danish "invaders" originally called home (e.g., 55% in Friesland), and even up to 30% in Norway. Thus a R1b haplotype makes it very challenging to determine the origin of a family with this DNA signature.

During the Last Glacial Maximum, about 18,000 years ago, the people bearing the R1b haplogroup over wintered in Northern Spain (see map1). After the glacial retreat about 12,000 years before present, R1b began a migration to the north in large numbers (see map 2), and to the east in declining numbers.

R1b probably arrived in Spain from the east 30,000 years ago among the paleolithic or "old stone age" peoples considered to be aboriginal to Europe). It is believed that everyone who is R1b is a descendant in the male line from an individual known as "the patriarch" since his descendants account for over 40% of all the chromosomes of Europe. This haplogroup is characteristic of the Basques whose language is probably that of the first R1b, and who are genetically the closest to the original R1b population (which probably amounted to only a few thousand individuals). Source: Dr. David Faux http://www.davidkfaux.org/shetlandhaplogroupR1b

The members of R1b3 (or R-M269, formerly known as R1b) are believed to be the descendants of the first modern humans who entered Europe about 35,000-40,000 years ago ( Aurignacian culture). Those R1b3 forebearers were the people who painted the beautiful art in the caves in Spain and France. They were the modern humans who were the contemporaries - and perhaps exterminators - of the European Neanderthals. Source: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....2003_R1b3.html

Hg R was the dominant lineage in Western Europe and then, pushed south by the descending Ice Age, to southwestern France and northwestern Spain to evolve into lineage Hg R1b. This area became a refuge for humans in Europe during the coldest millennia of the last Ice Age. As the climate warmed, the scattered clan Hg R1b followed the migration of game to the north and some of them reached what is now the British Isles about 15,000 years ago which at this time was connected to mainland Europe. It is believed they changed from hunter-gatherers to farmers in southeastern Europe about 8,000 years ago and in Britain about 4,000 years ago. As hunter-gathers became farmers permanent settlements ended this great migration period and over time Hg R1b settled predominately in what is known today as Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Denmark, England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Source http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....e_surnames.htm

During the Last Glacial Maximum, R1b produced finely knapped stone 'leaf points' which define the Solutrean culture and were culturally distinct from the people in other European Ice Age refuges who are described more generally as Epi-Gravettian. Source: Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Real Eve, pp 249-50.

The mates for R1b, about the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, were mtDNA haplogroups H and V. (Haplogroup V was born in the Basque area of the Pyrenees shortly after the Last Glacial Maximum. Source: Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Real Eve, p 251.)

R1b Subclade Analysis by Ken Nordtvedt

Haplogroup R1b

Most of the participants in the Cheek DNA study, including everyone in the main related groups (what we're calling "GROUP 1" and "GROUP 2"), appear to fall into Haplogroup R1b, which is the most common Y-DNA haplogroup in western Europe. Two participants from GROUP 1 have confirmed this result with an SNP test. The frequency of R1b is highest along the Atlantic coast of Europe (up to 90% of Welsh, Irish, and Basque populations, for example), and declines as you move east. Haplogroup R1b probably originated in a group of people who "wintered" in what is now Spain during the last Ice Age and then moved north when the glaciers retreated 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

A subset of the R1b haplogroup known as the "Atlantic Modal Haplotype" (AMH) consists of 6 genetic markers that have been found at high frequencies on the European Atlantic coast, such as Wales, Ireland, the Orkney Islands, and the Basque country. In the British Isles, the AMH is strongly associated with the Celts, including English people with Celtic ancestry ("Anglo-Celts"). Over the last 10,000 years, the British Isles have been home to a wide variety of people, including prehistoric tribes, Celts, Germanic tribes such as the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings from Scandinavia, and, most recently (1066 A.D.) the Normans from France, who were basically French-speaking Vikings. Although historians have usually assumed that the "ancient Britons" (Celts and others) were wiped out by the Anglo-Saxon invasions, or were all pushed into Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall, recent genetic studies show that the native population survived in many parts of England, especially in the southwest and along the southern coast.

**johnraciti** · 16 January 2006, 10:23 PM

In our study, the main related group, or "GROUP 1," matches the AMH on 5 out of 6 markers, and has a 2-step mutation on the remaining marker (a genetic distance of "2"). "GROUP 2" is also very close to the AMH, matching on 4 markers and having one-step mutations on 2 other markers (also a genetic distance of "2"). This is certainly consistent with the Cheeks being from southern England, where their surname seems to have originated. In fact, the Cheek/Chick surname was particularly common in the southwestern counties of Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, which have a long and colorful Celtic history. It was here that the old Celtic kingdom of Dumnonia held out against the West Saxons for several hundred years. The influence of the Celts can still be found in placenames and local traditions throughout the region, although it is most evident in Cornwall, which was the last province of Dumnonia to fall to the Saxons in the 9th century. The people of Cornwall spoke a Celtic language, Cornish, as recently as the 19th century. A related language called Old Devonian survived in parts of Devon until the Middle Ages.

Notes on Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1b

R1b (previously known as Hg1 and Eu18) is the most prolific haplogroup in Europe and its frequency changes in a cline from west (where it reaches a saturation point of almost 100% in areas of Western Ireland) to east (where it becomes uncommon in parts of Eastern Europe and virtually disappears beyond the Middle East). A R1b haplotype (a set of marker scores indicative of the haplogroup) is very difficult to interpret in that they are found at relatively high frequency in the areas where the Anglo - Saxon and Danish "invaders" originally called home (e.g., 55% in Friesland), and even up to 30% in Norway. Thus a R1b haplotype makes it very challenging to determine the origin of a family with this DNA signature.

During the Last Glacial Maximum, about 18,000 years ago, the people bearing the R1b haplogroup over wintered in Northern Spain (see map1). After the glacial retreat about 12,000 years before present, R1b began a migration to the north in large numbers (see map 2), and to the east in declining numbers.

R1b probably arrived in Spain from the east 30,000 years ago among the paleolithic or "old stone age" peoples considered to be aboriginal to Europe). It is believed that everyone who is R1b is a descendant in the male line from an individual known as "the patriarch" since his descendants account for over 40% of all the chromosomes of Europe. This haplogroup is characteristic of the Basques whose language is probably that of the first R1b, and who are genetically the closest to the original R1b population (which probably amounted to only a few thousand individuals). Source: Dr. David Faux http://www.davidkfaux.org/shetlandhaplogroupR1b

The members of R1b3 (or R-M269, formerly known as R1b) are believed to be the descendants of the first modern humans who entered Europe about 35,000-40,000 years ago ( Aurignacian culture). Those R1b3 forebearers were the people who painted the beautiful art in the caves in Spain and France. They were the modern humans who were the contemporaries - and perhaps exterminators - of the European Neanderthals. Source: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....2003_R1b3.html

Hg R was the dominant lineage in Western Europe and then, pushed south by the descending Ice Age, to southwestern France and northwestern Spain to evolve into lineage Hg R1b. This area became a refuge for humans in Europe during the coldest millennia of the last Ice Age. As the climate warmed, the scattered clan Hg R1b followed the migration of game to the north and some of them reached what is now the British Isles about 15,000 years ago which at this time was connected to mainland Europe. It is believed they changed from hunter-gatherers to farmers in southeastern Europe about 8,000 years ago and in Britain about 4,000 years ago. As hunter-gathers became farmers permanent settlements ended this great migration period and over time Hg R1b settled predominately in what is known today as Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Denmark, England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Source http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....e_surnames.htm

During the Last Glacial Maximum, R1b produced finely knapped stone 'leaf points' which define the Solutrean culture and were culturally distinct from the people in other European Ice Age refuges who are described more generally as Epi-Gravettian. Source: Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Real Eve, pp 249-50.

The mates for R1b, about the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, were mtDNA haplogroups H and V. (Haplogroup V was born in the Basque area of the Pyrenees shortly after the Last Glacial Maximum. Source: Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Real Eve, p 251.)

R1b Subclade Analysis by Ken Nordtvedt

Y Haplogroup HG1 and Aurignacian culture

''The members of R1b (HG1) are thought to be the descendants of the Paleolithic hunter-gatherers who arrived in Europe before the last Ice Age about 40,000 years ago (Aurignacian culture). That pattern is most common in Western Europe, but is also found in all other parts of Europe. The members of HG2 are believed to be the descendants of two later waves of humans into Europe. The last of these waves arrived about 8,000 years ago and is credited with introducing agriculture into Europe.

''The members of R1b3 (or R-M269, formerly known as R1b) are believed to be the descendants of the first modern humans who entered Europe about 35,000-40,000 years ago ( Aurignacian culture). Those R1b3 forebearers were the people who painted the beautiful art in the caves in Spain and France. They were the modern humans who were the contemporaries - and perhaps exterminators - of the European Neanderthals.

R1b3 is the most common Y haplogroup among men of European descent. Fourteen of the 30 most common haplotypes in the YSTR.org database are typical of R1b3. (Those haplotypes can be seen here). While several R1b3 sub-haplogroups have been identified, it turns out that they are only seen among very small percentages of R1b3's. The majority of men in this haplogroup belong to none of these sub-haplogroups and are therefore most properly classified as belonging to R1b3*. (More information about R1b3 sub-groups is available here). However the R1b3*s can be divided into two large identifiable groups by the results of a RFLP test of the 49a,f Taq/I locus. The R1b3*'s in Western Europe mostly have 49a,f Taq/I results that are categorized as "haplotype 15" (ht15). The R1b3*'s seen in Turkey, and Iraq have a different 49a,f Taq/I haplotype known as ht35. Al-Zahery et al in their paper on Iraq theorize that ht35 is actually the ancestral haplotype for R1b3*s. Cinnioglu et al speculate that the ht35 R1b3*s may have spent the Last Glacial Maximum in an Asia Minor refugium while the ht15 R1b3*s were in an Iberian refugium.''

**johnraciti** · 16 January 2006, 10:41 PM

Spanish genes in Sicily

Originally Posted by Astuto
How the hell did your wife obtain your Spanish genes????

As Mike Maddi - Co-administrator of the Sicily Project put it:

Given its position in the middle of the Mediterranean, Sicily has been the crossroads of civilizations and ethnic groups from the Middle East, Europe and North Africa going back at least 3,000 years. It starts with the Greeks and Phoenicians/Carthaginians. For most of the period of about 1300 to 1860, Sicily was ruled by a succession of Aragonese and Spanish kings.

So, I don't think it's hard to imagine that there was some intermarriage between Spanish administrators, soldiers and merchants in Sicily and the native Sicilian population. The town of my paternal ancestors is Mezzojuso. Now how did a Sicilian town come to have a "j" in its name, when there is no "j" in the Italian language? I suspect it had something to do with the Spanish rule?

Mike Maddi
Co-administrator of the Sicily Project

Thanks Heaps Mike

**johnraciti** · 17 January 2006, 12:23 AM

Upper Palaeolithic Sicilians - The Aurignacian culture

Upper Palaeolithic Sicilians - The Aurignacian culture

Could the Aurignacian culture be the first in Sicily?

If so, R1b3 R-M269 could well be the oldest Haplogroup found in Sicily.

Aurignacian
A flint industry of Upper Palaeolithic type (c. 35,000 - 25,000 BC), named after a settlement discovered in 1860 in a cave at Aurignac (Haute Garonne), in Southern France. The maker of this culture is Cro Magnon man (Hommo sapiens fossilis). In France it is stratified between the Châtelperronian and the Gravettian, but industries of Aurignacian type are found eastwards to the Balkans, Palestine, Iran and Afghanistan. Bone points with split bases are diagnostic of the earliest Aurignacian, and in the west this is the period of the first Cave Art. At the Abripataud there is a radiocarbon date of pre-31000 B.C. for the Aurignacian, but there are possibly earlier occurrences in central and southeast Europe ( Istallosko in Hungary and Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria). Early Aurignacian was discovered in Northern Romania (Maramureş region and Northern Moldavia), while Middle Aurignacian is spread all over the territory of present Romania as part of Middle Aurignacian of Central Europe.

The distribution of Parietal art is different from that of mobile art. However, where clusters of mobile art occurred in Central and Eastern Europe, an abundance of cave art occurs in the Périgord, the French Pyrenees and Cantabrian Spain (Bahn and Vertut 1988:35). Their distribution stretches from Portugal and southern Spain to the north of France. Eastern France does not have cave art, except along the Mediterranean through Sicily and Italy to the former western Yugoslavia and Romania (Bahn and Vertut 1988:35).

Suzanne Carr - UPPER PALAEOLITHIC ART

http://www.oubliette.zetnet.co.uk/Six.html

Palaeolithic decorated caves are found from Portugal and southern Spain to northern France. Their occurrence is equally patchy, though it is most abundant in areas rich in decorated objects: chief among these areas are the Périgord, the French Pyrenees, and Cantabrian Spain. There are concentrations in Italy and Sicily and a handful of caves are also known in south-western Germany, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Russia. The current total for Eurasia is about 280 sites. Some contain only one or a few figures, while others, like Lascaux or Les Trois Frères in France, have many hundreds. However, in recent years it has become apparent that Palaeolithic people also decorated rocks in the open air. In exceptional circumstances this rock art has survived: so far, engravings that are Palaeolithic in style have been found at six sites in Spain, Portugal, and the French Pyrenees. Cave art is therefore not typical of Palaeolithic art in general; caves are merely the places where most art has survived.

In recent years analyses of minute amounts of pigment from drawings and paintings on the walls of caves show that in many cases the pigment contains charcoal. Radiocarbon dates (see Dating Methods) obtained from it suggest that the accumulation of figures on cave walls was episodic and complex, and sometimes spanned a long period.

Apart from sporadic occurrences of non-utilitarian objects in earlier periods, the earliest Eurasian Palaeolithic art occurs in the Aurignacian period, 32,000 years ago. It takes the form of animal and human figurines carved from ivory and stone, excavated at sites in south-western Germany and Austria, and also in the remarkably sophisticated paintings in the newly discovered cave of Chauvet in the Ardèche (France). Tests on charcoal from two figures of a woolly rhinoceros and one of a bison have produced dates of c. 30,000 to 32,000 years ago, making these the earliest dated paintings in the world. Palaeolithic art seems to peter out with the end of the Ice Age at the close of the Magdalenian period, c. 11,000 years ago.

http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761578676/Palaeolithic_Art.html

ART OF THE HARROYAN PALEOLITHIC CIVILIZATION

The human two-faced head in Palleolithic sculpture

http://www.museoorigini.it/pagina59.html

bicephalic lithic and ivory anthropomorphic sculpture: two human heads joined for the nape.

An Overview of the Italian Paleolithic and Mesolithic by MARGHERITA MUSSI

The Prehistoric Society - Book Review

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/reviews/04_04_mussi.htm

Founded in 1935, the Prehistoric Society's interests are world wide and extend from the earliest human origins to the emergence of written records.

11000BC A Paleolithic burial in San Teodoro Cave, Sicily, revealed an arrowhead embedded in the pelvis bone of an adult female. Another arrowhead is known from the vertebra of a child buried in the Grotte des Enfants on the Italian coast.

Moustero-Aurignacian

Palaeolithic Archers?
Reexamination of human bones from a 13,000-year-old Upper Palaeolithic burial in San Teodoro Cave, Sicily, has led to the startling discovery of a small fragment of flint, probably part of an arrowhead, embedded in the pelvis of what is thought to have been an adult female.

Palaeolithic Archers? Volume 50 Number 3, May/June 1997
by Paul G. Bahn

Reexamination of human bones from a 13,000-year-old Upper Palaeolithic burial in San Teodoro Cave, Sicily, has led to the startling discovery of a small fragment of flint, probably part of an arrowhead, embedded in the pelvis of what is thought to have been an adult female. There is widespread evidence of arrows in Eurasia and North Africa in the following Mesolithic period, including preserved arrow shafts from Stellmoor, Germany, dating to about 8500 B.C., but Palaeolithic evidence has been ambiguous. Arrowlike images on animals and humanoid figures in cave paintings could be spears or something else entirely.

Archaeologist P.-F. Fabbri of the Università degli Studi di Pisa made the discovery while studying the bones, which were excavated in 1942. The flint had passed through the soft tissue and penetrated the bone. The wound caused inflammation and an abscess, and finally thickening of the bone around the flint, all of which indicates the woman survived the injury. X-ray images showed that the flint was part of a small blade retouched along one side. Presumably the small flint, pointed or triangular in shape, was one of several set into the arrow shaft to form a point, known from Mesolithic examples. Judging by its size and shape, the flint is far more likely to have been an arrowhead than the tip of a spear. Another arrowhead is known from the vertebra of a child buried in the Grotte des Enfants, on the Italian coast, dating, like San Teodoro, to around 13,000 years ago. Dominique Gambier of Bordeaux University is studying that skeleton.

The two Italian arrowheads are the only known indications of interhuman violence in this period in Europe. A deep cut in a woman's skull from the French rock-shelter of Cro-Magnon is now known to have been caused by a workman's pick in 1868.

**johnraciti** · 17 January 2006, 04:46 AM

The Aurignacian in Fontana Nuova di Ragusa in Sicily

Earliest Italy: An Overview of the Italian Paleolithic and Mesolithic by MARGHERITA MUSSI
Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. 2001. 399 pages, 143 text figures. ISBN 0-306-46463-2 (£63.00)

Earliest Italy is the first English language overview of the Italian Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, and as such should make a welcome addition to library bookshelves. Italy has a very rich archaeological record, and prehistoric sites are found virtually throughout the mainland and islands, both in caves and in the open-air, along the present-day coast, in the interior valleys, and on the high mountains. Italy has a surface area of more than 300,000 square kilometres, with 100,000 square kilometres of mountains and 125,000 square kilometres of hills, encircled by 9000 kilometres of coasts. In the south, Sicily reaches the 37th parallel, the same latitude as Algeria, Tunisia and Syria, while in the north, at a distance of 1100 kilometres, the country extends up to the Alps at the 47th parallel, culminating at 4810 metres above sea level with Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Europe. The country is thus characterised by a wide range of geographic variation which can be expected to have played an influential role in the land use of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.

After giving a very brief introduction to the geography of the country and the history of archaeological research, Mussi structures her book in six period-based chapters in each of which she synthesises the main characteristics of the stratigraphies, faunas and stone tool assemblages of three or four principal sites, and then comments on themes such as settlement patterns, subsistence strategies and social systems. I will highlight some of the salient points of each chapter, saving most of my comments for the discussion which follows.

Chapter 2, The Earliest Settlement, considers the evidence for the presence of the first humans in Italy. Mussi is an advocate of a short chronology, believing that such evidence dates to the early Middle Pleistocene, between 650,000 BP and 400,000 BP (see also Mussi 1995; for a different view, see Milliken 1999; 2004). Despite the absence of handaxes at many of these sites, she argues that assemblages of this age are all part of the Acheulean technocomplex, and the absence of handaxes can be explained by specialised activities, sampling bias, and lack of suitable raw material. Although human population density appears to have been low, it seems that a substantial part of the Italian peninsula was explored and settled, from Liguria in the north to Calabria in the south, and open-air sites are found both by the sea and in the hills of the interior.

Chapter 3, Real Colonization, addresses the late Middle Pleistocene archaeological record, between 360,000 BP and 130,000 BP. In this period there are more dated sites, and Acheulean assemblages are found all over the mainland, primarily in the open-air. As in most of Europe, the first Levallois industries also appear at this time. Mussi argues that there is no major change in site density and exploited resources compared with the period of earliest settlement, but there is evidence of seasonal occupation of some mountain areas, and the first signs of successful competition with carnivores for the use of caves.

**johnraciti** · 17 January 2006, 04:46 AM

Chapter 4, On Neandertals and Caves, is concerned with the Middle Palaeolithic period, from 130,000 BP to 40,000 BP. Most of the Mousterian industries can be classified within the framework established in France, as Typical Mousterian, Denticulate Mousterian, Ferrassie or Quina Mousterian, though no industries that could be described as Mousterian of Acheulean tradition have been discovered. In addition there is the Pontinian Mousterian, an industry made on very small pebbles, which is peculiar to west-central Italy. Mussi considers the nature of Mousterian assemblage variability on both an intrasite and an intersite level, and discusses topics such as lithic raw material procurement strategies, the use of shell as a raw material, and regional differentiation and chronological diversification. Unfortunately this chapter perpetuates the fallacy that caves constituted the focus of Neanderthal settlement patterns, whereas an exhaustive search of the literature has shown that this is not in fact the case, with open-air sites outnumbering cave and rockshelter sites by a ratio of at least two to one (Milliken 2001).

Chapter 5, Moderns versus Neandertals, addresses the question of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. In Italy the lithic industries found immediately after the Mousterian are classified as belonging either to the Uluzzian or to the Aurignacian, and there seems to be a tacit assumption that the former were made by Neanderthals while the latter were made by modern humans, Homo sapiens. In fact, human remains are very rare in the Italian Early Upper Palaeolithic, and consequently the association between different hominid species and lithic industries remains unclear.

Chapter 6, Fully Equipped Hunter-Gatherers, is concerned with the Gravettian and Early Epigravettian periods, between 25,000 BP and 16,000 BP. Beginning with the Gravettian, the archaeological record becomes more comprehensive, due to the extensive array of material found, such as works of art and the first evidence for burials. Although human settlement was as scattered as it had been in previous occupations, and in fact only about fifty sites can be dated to this period, the occupation of Italy appears to have been stable. This is in contrast to the preceding five thousand or so years, between 30,000 BP and 25,000 BP, when only isolated individuals, or small human groups, visited part of the Italian peninsula episodically. Some of the Gravettian and Early Epigravettian sites are multilayered settlements with thousands of artefacts indicating frequent reoccupation of a preferred spot, while others are short-term campsites.

Chapter 7, The Great Shift, is the final chapter in the book, and addresses the Late Glacial and Early Postglacial record, corresponding with the Final Epigravettian and the Mesolithic periods, from 16,000 BP to 7500 BP. Given the presence of mountain ranges within a short distance of the coast, Italy is ideally suited to illustrate the great shift in human adaptation that occurred at this time. Rising temperatures resulted in rising sea levels, which in turn caused the coastal plains to shrink and, in some areas, to disappear. This is reflected in a shift from marine to terrestrial molluscs in the shell middens, and in the abandonment of many sites. On the other hand, with rising temperatures the nearby mountain ranges became accessible to plants, animals, and, eventually, to humans, and hundreds of sites have been recorded between 1900 and 2300 metres above sea level, and up to the Alpine watershed. Some of these sites were short-lived, while others were repeatedly occupied, during summer excursions to hunt ibex and chamois. Sicily was permanently colonised during this period, although the evidence for pre-Neolithic occupation on Sardinia is more ambiguous.

The author of any archaeological textbook, and in particular of one that is trying to make available to the English-speaking world information that has largely been published in a foreign language, bears a heavy responsibility: to present a clear, accurate and unbiased account of the facts, and of the various ways these facts have been interpreted. On the whole I believe that Mussi has achieved this, though not consistently throughout the book, and there are some unfortunate omissions and inaccuracies. It is not possible in the space of this short review to flag up all of these, so I will restrict my comments to just a couple of themes in order to illustrate the kind of reservations I hold.

It would have been useful, for example, to have been provided with more tables which collate information, such as an inventory of Neanderthal skeletal remains. This table would have shown that these have been found at twenty-eight sites (and not from a dozen or so sites, p.113), and Italy in fact occupies second place, after France, for the greatest number of sites with such remains. In Italy, as in the rest of Europe, the first Neanderthal fossils were discovered towards the end of the nineteenth century. They were found at the site of Caverna delle Fate in Liguria in 1887-1888, although the bones were not identified as being Neanderthal until much later, since at that time the characteristics of this species were still poorly known. Caverna delle Fate, which is not mentioned at all by Mussi, is an important site, not only because of its role in the historical development of prehistoric studies in Italy, but also because of the number of Neanderthal remains found there: sixteen fossils representing numerous individuals, both adults and children (Giacobini et al. 1984). Another striking omission from Mussis book is the complete Neanderthal skeleton that was found at Grotta Lamalunga near Altamura, Apulia, in 1993 (Pesce Delfino & Vacca 1994). These two sites aside, the majority of the Neanderthal remains in Italy consist of the odd bone or the odd tooth. The fragmentary nature of the Neanderthal remains from the Italian sites is interpreted by Mussi as supporting the idea that burial of the dead was not practised, since mortuary behaviour in the Palaeolithic is generally assumed to have involved the burial of the entire corpse of the deceased. The fact that usually only a few bones or teeth are found is interpreted as being the result of natural processes, in this case carnivore scavenging activities. But I would argue that just as the assumption that articulated skeletal material constitutes prima facie evidence for deliberate mortuary practices is flawed, so too is the assumption that the absence of articulated skeletal material implies the absence of mortuary behaviour. We cannot exclude the possibility that, at least at some of these sites, we are witnessing mortuary practices based on disarticulated Neanderthal bones resulting from manipulations on corpses of the deceased (Milliken 2001).

Another table which Mussi could usefully have included would have been one showing the radiometric dates of Uluzzian and Aurignacian sites. This would have revealed that the Uluzzian sites in the south appear to be more or less contemporary with (or even later than) the Early Aurignacian sites in the north, while the Early Aurignacian sites in the south are more recent than those in the north, a pattern which has been interpreted as indicating a slow migration of anatomically modern humans from the north to the south (Bietti 1997). Such a table would also have revealed that there are, however, only three dated Aurignacian sites in the north, and only five in the centre/south. Instead, what Mussi actually tells us is that in Italy the full Upper Palaeolithic (i.e., the Aurignacian) is found everywhere by 31 ka (p. 208).

On the whole the text is well written, though Mussi has adopted the first person plural rather than singular, which is an odd stylistic choice for a single authored book, in particular since many of the views she expresses are not widely shared. My main criticism, though, beyond the omissions and inaccuracies, resides with what one can only describe as shoddy editing and proof reading: at a price of £63, and published by a reputable company such as Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, one neither expects, nor deserves, a book which has numerous typographic errors, superimposed and consequently illegible text, maps which have been printed upside down, blurred photographs, and indecipherable charts.

Despite the reservations which I have briefly outlined here, the English-speaking student of the Italian Palaeolithic and Mesolithic should nevertheless find much useful information in this book.

Sarah Milliken
Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford

References
Bietti, A., 1997. The transition to anatomically modern humans: the case of peninsular Italy. In Clark, G.A. & Willerment, C. (eds), Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins Research. New York, Aldine de Gruyter,132-150
Giacobini, G., de Lumley, M.A., Yokoyama, Y. & Nguyen, H.V., 1984. Neanderthal child and adult remains from a Mousterian deposit in Northern Italy (Caverna delle Fate, Finale Ligure). Journal of Human Evolution 13, 687-707
Milliken, S., 1999. The earliest occupation of Italy. Accordia Research Papers 7, 7-36
Milliken, S., 2001. The Neanderthals in Italy. Accordia Research Papers 8, 11-82
Milliken, S., 2004. Out of Africa or out of Asia? The colonization of Europe by Homo erectus. Athena Review 4 (1), 21-34.
Mussi, M., 1995. The earliest occupation of Europe: Italy. In Roebroeks, W. & van Kolfschoten, T. (eds), The Earliest Occupation of Europe. Leiden, University of Leiden Press, 27-50
Pesce Delfino, V. & Vacca, E., 1994. Report of an archaic human skeleton discovered at Altamura (Bari), in the Lamalunga district. Human Evolution 9, 1-19

Review Submitted: April 2004

The Prehistoric Society - Book Review

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/reviews/04_04_mussi.htm

Founded in 1935, the Prehistoric Society's interests are world wide and extend from the earliest human origins to the emergence of written records.

**johnraciti** · 17 January 2006, 04:47 AM

Chilardi S., Frayer D.W., Groia P., et al (1996) Fontana Nouva di Ragusa (Sicily, Italy); southernmost Aurignacian site in Europe. Antiquity 70(269), pp. 553-563. (animal bone)

Chilardi S., Frayer D.W., Gioia P., Macchiarelli R., Mussi M. (1996) - Fontana Nuova di Ragusa (Sicily, Italy) : southernmost Aurignacian site in Europe, , Anti., Antiquity, - Fontana Nuova di Ragusa, a small rock-shelter in southeast Sicily, was thoroughly excavated by Bernabo Brea in 1949. In the far south of Europe - Sicily is nearly on a latitude with Africa - it has continuing importance as marking a southern geographical limit of Aurignacian settlement, and as proof of humans crossing the strait into island Sicily. The Aurignacian in Europe is widely distributed from Romania in the east to Wales in the north and Spain in the west. Its southernmost extension is represented by a diverse series of lithic tools discovered in a small rock-shelter in southern Sicily. This locality, Fontana Nuova, is the only site on the island at which the Aurignacian is fully documented in a stratigraphic context. -

http://www.aurignacien.com/biblio/listeComplete.jsp

11,000BCE A Paleolithic burial in San Teodoro Cave, Sicily, revealed an arrowhead embedded in the pelvis bone of an adult female. Another arrowhead is known from the vertebra of a child buried in the Grotte des Enfants on the Italian coast.

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http://timelines.ws/0A1MILL_3300BC.HTML

Fontana Nuova di Ragusa (Sicily, Italy): southernmost Aurignacian site in Europe.

Date: 09/01/1996
Publication: Antiquity; Author: Chilardi, S. Frayer, D.W. Gioia, P. Macchiarelli, R. Mussi, M. ; Source: MAGAZINES

Artefacts found in Fontana Nuova di Ragusa in Sicily, Italy are evidence that the site is the southernmost Aurignacian settlement in Europe. The site, a rock shelter, was excavated by Bernabo Brea in 1949. The materials that he collected consist of lithics, human bones and animal remains and these are now kept at the Museo Archeologico de Siracusa. Close examination of the collection reveals information about human migrations and adaptation. The humans who left all the artefacts behind did not remain at the site for long as evidenced by the sparse fauna collection.

Fontana Nuova di Ragusa, a small rock-shelter in southeast Sicily, was thoroughly excavated by Bernabo Brea in 1949. In the far south of Europe - Sicily is nearly on a latitude with Africa - it has continuing importance as marking a southern geographical limit of Aurignacian settlement, and as proof of humans crossing the strait into island Sicily.

The Aurignacian in Europe is widely distributed from Romania in the east to Wales in the north and Spain in the west. Its southernmost extension is represented by a diverse series of lithic tools discovered in a small rock-shelter

**johnraciti** · 17 January 2006, 04:59 AM

If The Aurignacian culture are members of H1 - R1b - R1b3 - R-M269...

If The Aurignacian culture are members of H1 - R1b - R1b3 - R-M269...

They found an Aurignacian site in Fontana Nuova di Ragusa in Sicily. This could be the oldest culture found in Sicily to date.

I believe The Aurignacian culture is the earliest natives of the island of Sicily. They possible came from France and entered from the north of Italy.

**johnraciti** · 17 January 2006, 06:23 AM

Aurignacian Culture - Ibero-Sicanians Culture Sicanians Culture

Aurignacian Culture - Ibero-Sicanians Culture Sicanians Culture

Are The Aurignacians the oldest settlers of the latium (it is to say of the peninsula Thyrrenian or Italian)?

Or was Virgilius wrong...

Virgilius considered to the Ibero-Sicanians as the oldest settlers of the latium (it is to say of the peninsula Thyrrenian or Italian)

Servius, in its "Antiques of the Latium or of Italy", affirms that "old" the Ibero-Sicanes "was the first inhabitants of the same city that later got to dominate the world". It affirms Servius that the Ibero-Sicanians, was the first colonizadores of old Rome.

Plinius, also confirms the data of the colonization of the Ibero-Sicanians on the Thyrrenian.

According to Denys Halicarnasse, the Ibero-Sycanians was allied with the Pelasges and Tursanes (Etruscians) to fight against the Ombrios, Sicules and other towns egeans. According to this same author, the Ibero-Sicanians was those that gave name to the Tiber river and the old city of Tibur in the peninsula of the Latium or Thyrrenian.

Thucydides, affirms that ibero-sicanians when they colonized Sicily, they called Sicania, and thus he appears attested by Homero in his Odyssey, which confirms that the colonizations that made the Iberians in the direction of the interior of the Mediterranean, that is to say, towards the East, until the Thyrrenia and Asia, it was long before the times of Homero, and before the Phoenicians arrived at Iberia.

Since we have verified previously, existed a tradition rather hard on the origin iberian of ibero-sicanians that is, of the Sicanians; then in this fragment of the Odissea de Homero, one affirms that a city or a place of Sicania came from Alyba.

Alyba or Alybê was some place near Troy (TROY - TRUVA - 4000 years old Ancient City)

Clearly The Aurignacian Culture pre-dates the Ibero-Sicanians Sicanians Culture found in Fontana Nuova di Ragusa in Sicily.

**johnraciti** · 17 January 2006, 06:50 AM

The Sicani - The Aurignacian Culture

The Sicani (Greek Sikanoi) were an ancient people of Italy and Sicily. Thucydides (6.2) writes that, after the Cyclopes and Laestrygones, the Sicani were the next to settle in Italy. They had earlier dwelt in Iberia near the river Sicanus but were driven from thence by the Ligurians. However, since Thucydides extends Iberia as far east as the Rhone, Sicanus may in fact have been a river in Gaul (some propose that Sicanus corresponds to the river Sequana, the modern Seine).

Could The Sicani be related to The Aurignacian Culture - found in Iberia near the river Sicanus?

Announcement

R1b3 (or R-M269, formerly known as R1b) - Can we make sense of it?

R1b3 (or R-M269, formerly known as R1b) - Can we make sense of it?

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