Fabio Di Vincenzo

Digital reconstruction of the Ceprano calvarium (Italy), and implications for its interpretation

The Ceprano calvarium was discovered in fragments on March 1994 near the town of Ceprano in southern Latium (Italy), embedded in Middle Pleistocene layers. After reconstruction, its morphological features suggests that the specimen belongs to an archaic variant of H. heidelbergensis, representing a proxy for the last common ancestor of the diverging clades that respectively led to H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens. Unfortunately, the calvarium was taphonomically damaged. The postero-lateral vault, in particular, appears deformed and this postmortem damage may have influenced previous interpretations. Specifically, there is a depression on the fragmented left parietal, while the right cranial wall is warped and angulated. This deformation affected the shape of the occipital squama, producing an inclination of the transverse occipital torus. In this paper, after X-ray microtomography (μCT) of both the calvarium and several additional fragments, we analyze consistency and pattern of the taphonomic deformation that affected the specimen, before the computer-assisted retrodeformation has been performed; this has also provided the opportunity to reappraise early attempts at restoration. As a result, we offer a revised interpretation for the Ceprano calvarium’s original shape, now free from the previous uncertainties, along with insight for its complex depositional and taphonomic history.

Virtual Anthropology and its Application in Cultural Heritage Studies

ABSTRACT The remains that typically compose the human fossil record often bear cracks, damage, and deformations. The recent rapid development of ‘virtual anthropology’ has provided innovative tools to manage, study, and preserve cultural and natural heritage. Such tools include computerized tomography (CT), laser scanning, photogrammetry, 3D imaging, and rapid prototyping. These approaches can contribute to any archaeological context from the discovery of artefacts to research, preservation, and dissemination. 3D imaging techniques can substitute physical intervention with a virtual protocol to restore the original shape of a fossil specimen. In a similar way, digital morphological information can be recovered using data preserved even on a fragment through the use of 3D comparative samples. Here we present an extended and updated review of the most innovative protocols in virtual anthropology, also applicable in other fields such as natural history and cultural heritage studies, through the description of recent cast studies.

Retrodeformation of fossil specimens based on 3D bilateral semi-landmarks: Implementation in the R package “Morpho”

Many fossil specimens exhibit deformations caused by taphonomic processes. Due to these deformations, even important specimens have to be excluded from morphometric analyses, impoverishing an already poor paleontological record. Techniques to retrodeform and virtually restore damaged (i.e. deformed) specimens are available, but these methods genenerally imply the use of a sparse set of bilateral landmarks, ignoring the fact that the distribution and amount of control points directly affects the result of the retrodeformation. We propose a method developed in the R environment and available in the R-package “Morpho” that, in addition to the landmark configurations, also allows using a set of semi-landmarks homogeneously distributed along curves and on surfaces. We evaluated the outcome of the retrodeformation, regarding the number of semi-landmarks used and its robustness against asymmetric noise, based on simulations using a virtually deformed gorilla cranium. Finally, we applied the method to a well-known Neanderthal cranium that exhibits signs of taphonomically induced asymmetry.

Emulation, (Over)imitation and Social Creation of Cultural Information

The creation of cultural information by humans is an ability that requires to compound together different factors. Although information needs to be transmitted faithfully enough so to prevent errors, space must be left to create innovations at the same time.

An Evolutionary Perspective on Primate Social Cognition

The Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis and the social brain hypothesis have revolutionized traditional views on how primate cognition can be studied. Beyond the study of individual problem-solving capacities of various primates, these hypotheses have demonstrated the close relationship between the complexity of primate social life and the emergence of more sophisticated cognitive skills. The social brain hypothesis demonstrated the existence of a close correlation between the volume of the neocortex and the number of individuals in primate social groups. The amount of studies in this area have increased dramatically and have successfully enhanced our understanding of the evolutionary roots of complex social phenomena, including theory of mind, cultural transmission, social learning, and shared attention. The cognitive capacities present in primates also underlie the evolution of cognitive capacities in humans. This chapter introduces present avenues taken in research on primate social cognition, and it walks the reader through the chapters of this volume.

Dietary resilience among hunter-gatherers of Tierra del Fuego: Isotopic evidence in a diachronic perspective

The native groups of Patagonia have relied on a hunter-gatherer economy well after the first Europeans and North Americans reached this part of the world. The large exploitation of marine mammals (i.e., seals) by such allochthonous groups has had a strong impact on the local ecology in a way that might have forced the natives to adjust their subsistence strategies. Similarly, the introduction of new foods might have changed local diet. These are the premises of our isotopic-based analysis. There is a large set of paleonutritional investigations through isotopic analysis on Fuegians groups, however a systematic exploration of food practices across time in relation to possible pre- and post-contact changes is still lacking. In this paper we investigate dietary variation in hunter-gatherer groups of Tierra del Fuego in a diachronic perspective, through measuring the isotopic ratio of carbon (∂13C) and nitrogen (∂15N) in the bone collagen of human and a selection of terrestrial and marine animal samples. The data obtained reveal an unexpected isotopic uniformity across prehistoric and recent groups, with little variation in both carbon and nitrogen mean values, which we interpret as the possible evidence of resilience among these groups and persistence of subsistence strategies, allowing inferences on the dramatic contraction (and extinction) of Fuegian populations.

The evolution of cranial base and face in Cercopithecoidea and Hominoidea: Modularity and morphological integration

The evolutionary relationship between the base and face of the cranium is a major topic of interest in primatology. Such areas of the skull possibly respond to different selective pressures. Yet, they are often said to be tightly integrated. In this paper, we analyzed shape variability in the cranial base and the facial complex in Cercopithecoidea and Hominoidea. We used a landmark‐based approach to single out the effects of size (evolutionary allometry), morphological integration, modularity, and phylogeny (under Brownian motion) on skull shape variability. Our results demonstrate that the cranial base and the facial complex exhibit different responses to different factors, which produces a little degree of morphological integration between them. Facial shape variation appears primarily influenced by body size and sexual dimorphism, whereas the cranial base is mostly influenced by functional factors. The different adaptations affecting the two modules suggest they are best studied as separate and independent units, and that—at least when dealing with Catarrhines—caution must be posed with the notion of strong cranial integration that is commonly invoked for the evolution of their skull shape.