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Authors
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) reveals a climatic progression from the
cold conditions of the Greenland Stadial-2 (GS-2) to the abrupt sequence of warming conditions
of the Greenland Interstadial-1 (GI-1), during which new ecological habitats flourished
allowing hunter-gatherers to re-occupy the Alpine altitudes. In this context, Riparo Tagliente,
a rock-shelter in northeast Italy, testifies to the earliest re-colonization in the south-eastern preAlps by the Late Epigravettian hunter-gatherers.
Exploring the ecology of red deer (Cervus elaphus) from the archaeological site of
Riparo Tagliente provides insights into the significant impacts of the Late Glacial climatic
fluctuations on human habitats. For this purpose, we measured the carbon and oxygen stable
isotope ratios (δ
13C, δ
18O) of enamel carbonate through a sequential sampling of the second and
third molar crowns of red deer from this major Alpine site, preserving the most expanded
stratigraphic sequence of the region. The red deer molars were selected among the remains
collected in the stratigraphic units 13 to 5, spanning from GS-2.1a to GI-1 phases.
Obtained δ
13C values on red deer show a diet based on terrestrial C3 plants from a habitat
characterized by the presence of an open canopy woodland during the Late Glacial. The δ
18O
values yield the seasonal climatic conditions captured during the enamel formation, mainly
summer for the second molars and winter for the third molars. In addition, seasonal conditions
recorded in the δ
18O values were estimated based on known equations relating the δ
18O values
of carbonate to those of consumed water and the δ
18O values of the meteoric water to the mean
monthly air temperature (MMT) and the mean annual air temperature (MAT). The resulting
reconstruction indicates the MMT temperature around –6.5 °C in winter for layer 13 for the
period 16,634–15,286 cal. BP, when glaciers were melting in the Alpine region. In layer 10, is
the transition between GS-2.1a and GI-1, the MMT temperatures drop down to –8.9 °C in winter
and reach around 9.9 °C in summer. Temperatures increase in summer reaching values around
15.4 °C in layer 9 and 14.5 °C in layer 7 for the period 14,572–13,430 cal. BP, associated with
the temperate Interstadial GI-1. Together these results suggest no significant changes in the diet
of this key game and the presence of relatively open forest landscape through the entire
sequence despite the environment influenced by paleoclimatic variations over the seasons
Description
Keywords
Riparo Tagliente Red deer (Cervus elaphus) Late Glacial Late Epigravettian Stable isotopes Paleoclimate Paleoenvironment Temperature