Pirro North

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The archaeological site of Pirro Nord , also known as Cava Pirro or Cava Dell'Erba , contained possibly the oldest human tools in Europe, in any case the oldest in Italy . It is located in the Apulia region , more precisely in a quarry near Apricena in the Foggia province .

Pirro Nord (Italy)
Pirro North
Pirro North

Discovery, classification, finds, excavations

At the time of the first immigration of human groups, Italy was considerably narrower, the Abruzzo had not yet risen, the Adriatic only began in the area of ​​Monte Gargano, not far from Pirro Nord.

Pirro Nord is a complicated karst system that consists of numerous caves. These are called "Pirro 10" or "Pirro 13", the latter is located on a steep wall and contains the stone tools that provided evidence of human presence.

Flint core

The lithic industry , discovered in 2006 and excavated since 2008 , was initially represented by only three cores and seven Silex tees. By 2010 this number grew to 235 pieces, at the beginning of 2012 it was already over 250, in 2014 it was over 340. Technologically, the stone tools are similar to the other earliest finds in Europe. Some poor quality tools suggest that the amount of high quality flint around the caves was limited.

The excavations are being carried out under the auspices of the University of Ferrara , more precisely the Dipartimento di Biologia ed Evoluzione , in collaboration with the University of La Sapienza in Rome and the University of Turin .

Ecology, nutrition

These artifacts were found in connection with animal remains, which allows conclusions to be drawn about animal and human migration, dating, socialization with local animal species, human nutrition, hunting and cutting techniques.

The animal remains came, for example, from the species Allophaiomys ruffoi , a vole species found only in Italy , or from Episoriculus gibberodon . Episoriculus comes from the shrew family and is no longer found in Europe today. These rodents typically appeared together with large mammals such as Bison degiulii or Equus altidens , bison or horse species, but also with big cats and elephants, deer ( Axis eurygonos ), porcupines ( Hystrix refossa ), bears ( Ursus etruscus ) and dogs ( Canis mosbachensis which disappeared almost 800,000 years ago). This fauna defines the Pirro Nord Faunal Unit in Western European biochronology .

The animals, which probably immigrated to the edge of Abruzzo during the warm phases and possibly came to the Tyrrhenian Sea via Liguria , lived in isolation for so long that endemic species emerged, such as Palaeoloxodon antiquus italicus . The great diversity of species was only greatly reduced with the maximum icing in the last glacial period and perhaps through human influence around 30,000 years ago.

It is possible that more than 1.3 million years ago human hunters followed the elephants and bison again, who avoided a particularly dry cold phase to the south and west 870,000 years ago. So they moved from the east ( Georgia , Dmanisi ) westward to Italy, southern France and Spain. Above all, the Po plain could have been used as a trail area for the first time, because the areas near the Alps and Abruzzo were impassable.

literature

  • Marta Arzarello, Carlo Peretto: The Pirro Nord site (Apricena, Fg, Southern Italy) in the context of the first European peopling: Convergences and divergences , in: Quaternary International 389 (December 2, 2015) 255–263.
  • Marta Arzarello, Giulio Pavia, Carlo Peretto, Carmelo Petronio, Raffaele Sardella: Evidence of an Early Pleistocene hominin presence at Pirro Nord (Apricena, Foggia, southern Italy): P13 site , in: Quaternary International 267 (July 26, 2012) 56– 61.
  • Marco Pavia, Marta Zunino, Mauro Coltorti, Chiara Angelone, Marta Arzarello, Cristina Bagnus, Luca Bellucci, Simone Colombero, Federica Marcolini, Carlo Peretto, Carmelo Petronio, Mauro Petrucci, Pierluigi Pieruccini, Raffaele Sardella, Evdokia Tema, Boris Villier, Giulio Pavia : Stratigraphical and palaeontological data from the Early Pleistocene Pirro 10 site of Pirro Nord (Puglia, south eastern Italy) , in: Quaternary International (2010).
  • Marta Arzarello, Carlo Peretto: Out of Africa: The first evidence of Italian peninsula occupation , in: Quaternary International 223-224 (2010) 65-70.
  • Anastassios Kotsakis, Carmelo Petronio, Chiara Angelone, Luca Bellucci, Federica Marcolini, Leonardo Salari, Rafaele Sardella: Changes in the Late Villafranchian Mammal assemblages (from Farneta to Pirro FU, Early Pleistocene) of Italy. Abstract 33rd International Geological Congress, Oslo 6–14 August 2008 , 2008.
  • Marta Arzarello, Federica Marcolini, Giulio Pavia, Marco Pavia, Carmelo Petronio, Mauro Petrucci, Lorenzo Rook, Raffaele Sardella: Evidence of earliest human occurrence in Europe: the site of Pirro Nord (Southern Italy) , in: Naturwissenschaften 94,2 (2007 ) 107-112.
  • Marta Arzarello, Federica Marcolini, Giulio Pavia, Marco Pavia, Carmelo Petronio, Mauro Petrucci, Lorenzo Rook, Raffaele Sardella: L'industrie lithique du site Pléistocène inférieur de Pirro Nord (Apricena, Italie du sud): une occupation humaine entre 1,3 et 1.7 Ma / The lithic industry of the Early Pleistocene site of Pirro Nord (Apricena South Italy): The evidence of a human occupation between 1.3 and 1.7 Ma , in: L'Anthropologie 113.1 (2009) 47-58.
  • Lorenzo Rook, Raffaele Sardella: Hystrix refossa Gervais 1852, from Pirro Nord, Early Pleistocene, Southern Italy , in: Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia 111 (2005) 485-492 ( online , PDF).
  • Massimo Delfino, Salvador Bailon: Early Pleistocene herpetofauna from Cava Dell'Erba and Cava Pirro (Apulia, southern Italy) , in: Herpethological Journal 10 (2000) 95-110.
  • Federico Masini, Gianluca Santini: Microtus (Allophaiomys) from Cava Pirro (Apricena, Gargano) and other italian localities , in: Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana 30 (1991) 355-380.

Movie

  • Memorie di una Pietra by F. Scapin (LUMINA Film)

Web links

  • Pirro Nord , Dipartimento di Biologia ed Evoluzione, University of Ferrara

Remarks

  1. ↑ Marta Arzarello, Giulio Pavia, Carlo Peretto, Carmelo Petronio, Raffaele Sardella: Evidence of an Early Pleistocene hominin presence at Pirro Nord (Apricena, Foggia, southern Italy): P13 site , in: Quaternary International (2011).
  2. ↑ Juan Manuel López-García, Elisa Luzi, Claudio Berto, Carlo Peretto, Marta Arzarello: Chronological context of the first hominin occurrence in southern Europe: the Allophaiomys ruffoi (Arvicolinae, Rodentia, Mammalia) from Pirro 13 (Pirro Nord, Apulia, southwestern Italy) , in: Quaternary Science Reviews 107 (2015) 260-266.
  3. ↑ See the corresponding entries in the Palaeobiology Database .
  4. ↑ Carmelo Petronio, Luca Bellucci, Giuseppe Di Stefano: Axis eurygonos from Pirro Nord (Apricena, Southern Italy) , in: Palaeontographica, Department A, Volume 298, Delivery 1-6 (2013), pp. 169-181.
  5. ↑ Marta Arzarello, Federica Marcolini, Giulio Pavia, Marco Pavia, Carmelo Petronio, Mauro Petrucci, Lorenzo Rook, Raffaele Sardella: Evidence of earliest human occurrence in Europe: the site of Pirro Nord (Southern Italy) , in: Naturwissenschaften 94.2 ( 2007) 107-112.
  6. ↑ Carmelo Petronio, Luca Bellucci, Edoardo Martiinetto, Luca Pandolfi, Leonardo Salari: Biochronology and palaeoenvironmental changes from the Middle Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene in Central Italy. In: Geodiversitas. 33.3 (2011) 485-517.
  7. ^ Nicolas Rolland: The earliest hominid dispersals beyond Subsaharan Africa: A survey of underlying causes , in: Quaternary International 223–224 (2010) 54–64.
  8. ↑ Giovanni Muttoni, Giancarlo Scardia, Dennis V. Kent: Human migration into Europe during the late Early Pleistocene climate transition , in: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 296, 1-2 (2010) 79-93.

Coordinates: 41 ° 48 ′ 6 "  N , 15 ° 23 ′ 14.2"  E