May 20, 2009

Origin of San Teodoro Paleolithic Sicilians

Journal of Human Evolution doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.02.002

Late Pleistocene human evolution in Sicily: comparative morphometric analysis of Grotta di San Teodoro craniofacial remains

Giuseppe D'Amore et al.

Abstract

The paleoanthropological remains from Grotta di San Teodoro near Acquedolci (province of Messina, Italy) represent the oldest and largest skeletal collection yet found documenting human settlement of Sicily. The sample, attributed to the Late Epigravettian (between 14,000 and 10,000 years B.P.), consists of seven variously complete adult individuals (San Teodoro 1–7). We compare the cranial sample to an array of both prehistoric and recent samples using multivariate techniques including D2 distance analysis, canonical variate analysis, cluster analysis, and multidimensional scaling. Overall, the San Teodoro cranial sample displays a morphometric pattern close to Western European groups of similar antiquity, in particular those from Central and Southern Italy. The morphometric affinities indicate that these people probably came from peninsular Italy by sea during the Late Epigravettian epoch. An alternative hypothesis is that they descended from immigrants that arrived by land during a low sea level episode corresponding to the maximum Würmian regression, about 18,000 years B.P, with gene flow accounting for the morphological homogeneity with the populations of peninsular Italy. The San Teodoro skeletal sample provides the first reliable evidence for human settlement of Sicily.

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3 comments:

  1. Dear Dienekes, I didn’t write to you yesterday as I desired. I thought that the position of Pinzochero isn’t only a problem between him and me, but that has a public relevance if who declared that R1b1b2 is in Europe not older than 4,000 years now says it is Mesolithic. I thank you for your blog, also for this: “Overall, the San Teodoro cranial sample displays a morphometric pattern close to Western European groups of similar antiquity, in particular those from Central and Southern Italy. The morphometric affinities indicate that these people probably came from peninsular Italy by sea during the Late Epigravettian epoch. An alternative hypothesis is that they descended from immigrants that arrived by land during a low sea level episode corresponding to the maximum Würmian regression, about 18,000 years B.P, with gene flow accounting for the morphological homogeneity with the populations of peninsular Italy. The San Teodoro skeletal sample provides the first reliable evidence for human settlement of Sicily”. I would be very glad if scientists could do a YDNA exam: I bet that those men are R1b1b2/L23-.
    Kind Regards, Gioiello Tognoni

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  2. Don't think so mate. That haplogroup you mentioned is about 4 ky old. Its parent R1b is of Mesolithic age but unfortunately for you, not European but in Southwest Asia.

    Mesolithic Europeans were mostly likely of Haplogroup I or some extinct haplogroup.

    It is good that human remains from that time are have been found in the Mediterranean Europe especially the islands like Sicily. Shows that there were people there long before the arrival of the putative Levantines with their pigs, sheep, goats and wheat.

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