Elisabetta Starnini

Elisabetta Starnini
University of Pisa | UNIPI · Department of Civilisations and Forms of Knowledge

PhD (Prehistory)
Associate Professor, Prehistory and Protohistory, University of Pisa, Italy

About

145
Publications
64,252
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Citations
Introduction
Elisabetta Starnini (PhD in Prehistory of the Mediterranean countries) works in Italy, Hungary, Pakistan, Oman and Greece. She has been the director of the Prehistoric National Museum of Balzi Rossi (2013-2015), Contract Professor of Archaeometry (Genova, 2001-2002), Prehistory and Protohistory (Torino, 2012-19) and Researcher (Pisa, 2018-2022). She is now Associate Professor in Prehistory and Protohistory at the Department of Civilisations and Forms of Knowledge, University of Pisa.
Additional affiliations
December 2019 - December 2022
University of Pisa
Position
  • Senior Researcher
October 2005 - September 2006
Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
Description
  • Anno Accademico 2005-2006 Professore a contratto di Laboratorio di Analisi dei Materiali antichi per il Corso di Laurea Specialistica in Archeologia e Conservazione dei Beni Culturali Archeologici presso la Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell'Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia.
September 2005 - October 2006
Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Position
  • Professor
Description
  • Anno Accademico 2005-2006, Professore a contratto di Laboratorio di Analisi dei Materiali antichi per il Corso di Laurea Specialistica in Archeologia e Conservazione dei Beni Culturali Archeologici presso la Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell'Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia.
Education
October 1998 - February 2002
University of Genoa
Field of study
  • Prehistory of the Mediterranean Countries

Publications

Publications (145)
Article
Full-text available
The Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11c interglacial and its preceding glacial termination represent an enigmatically intense climate response to relatively weak insolation forcing. So far, a lack of radiometric age control has confounded a detailed assessment of the insolation-climate relationship during this period. Here, we present ²³⁰Th-dated speleo...
Chapter
Full-text available
In total, 175 obsidian artifacts from Late Neolithic (Tisza culture) contexts at the tell site of Gorzsa in southeast Hungary were analyzed using a portable XRF device and the results were compared with the corresponding measurements made on geological samples from known European obsidian sources. The data support the conclusion that most of the ob...
Article
Full-text available
Hódmezővásárhely–Gorzsa is a multi-period tell settlement in South Hungary in the centre of the Great Hungarian Plain, about 15 km southwest of the city of Hódmezővásárhely. The thickest section of the settlement belongs to the Late Neolithic Tisza Culture period. In total, 1061 macrolithic artefacts were unearthed, a quarter of which was polished,...
Article
Full-text available
Archaeological surveys carried out in Sindh in the 1970s were resumed during the last decade and are still underway. They have shown that Upper Palaeolithic assemblages occur in few territories of the Greater Indus Valley, Lower Sindh in particular. Among them are the northern coast of the Arabian Sea and the banks of the seasonal watercourses that...
Book
Full-text available
The scope of this volume is to provide new data on aspects of landscape archaeology and show how and why methods, paradigms, and perspectives have changed during the last fifty years regarding conceiving, approaching, and studying the archaeology of the human past. The methods we employ now to interpret archaeological landscapes and the effect of h...
Article
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This article discusses the chaîne opératoire concept in prehistoric archaeology, traditionally employed for the study of lithic industries and ceramic production, and focuses on personal ornament manufacture. This category of non-functional objects has been analysed with the operational sequence approach in the framework of a research project aimed...
Conference Paper
The Lorenzi rock shelter: an unprecedented context in the Ligurian-Provençal Epigravettian landscape - The Epigravettian technocomplex characterizes the final Upper Paleolithic in the Mediterranean region. Presumably developed from the previous Gravettian, the Epigravettian, by showing both common typo-technological patterns and several regional as...
Article
Full-text available
We report the discovery and analysis of new Mesolithic human remains—dated to ca. 10,200–9000 cal. BP—from Arma di Nasino in Liguria, northwestern Italy, an area rich in Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic attestations, but for which little information on Early Holocene occupation was available. The multi-proxy isotopic profile of the two individuals r...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Coasco (Villanova d'Albenga, Savona Province): an open-air Neolithic settlement in the hinterland of Albenga-The neolithic site of Coasco, near Villanova di Albenga (Western Li-guria), is located on a Pleistocene terrace, about 7 km away, as the crow flies, from the current coastline, along the valley of the Arroscia torrent. The paper presents a f...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Mandurea is a small cave located in the immediate inland of the town of Borgio, in Western Liguria. Discovered by chance at the beginning of the last century, the site was investigated in the 1930s by P. Barocelli and A. Mochi. During these surveys, human remains and some prehistoric potsherds were collected on the surface of the cave floor. In 196...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
New results from sourcing the early Neolithic obsidian artefacts from the Pollera Cave (Finale Ligure, SV)-This paper presents the results of a new chemical characterization conducted on early Neolithic obsidian artefacts from the excavations carried out in 1971-73 at Pollera Cave, in western Liguria. We re-analysed four artefacts from the impresso...
Preprint
Full-text available
Surveys carried out in December 2021 around Gharo, Gujo, the Makli Hills, and the terraces of the Khadeji and Mol Rivers have yielded important knapped stone assemblages, which contribute to the study of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene prehistory of Lower Sindh. The surveys were conducted by three persons, and the finds were mapped with the help...
Article
Full-text available
Mesolithic evidence in mountainous Greece
Article
The present paper summarizes the new results of the “Bàsura revisited” interdisciplinary research project. Revision of paleontological data on Ursus spelaeus occupation of the cave and new data coming from a test excavation made in the “Sala dei Misteri” are here presented together with the preliminary results of radiometric dates performed on bear...
Chapter
The main aim of this paper is to offer an updated overview of the origin of human selfrepresentation. Anthropomorphic figurines are indeed one of the most discussed expressions of the symbolic imaginary of Homo sapiens. If we exclude the African Makapansgat pebble, a 3-million-year-old pebble with a pattern of lines on the surface that looks like a...
Article
Full-text available
Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years1,2. Our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers is however limited, owing to the scarceness and poor molecular preservation of human remains from that period³. Here we analyse 356 ancient hunter-gatherer genomes, including new genomic data for 116...
Article
Full-text available
Past human mountain settlement patterns and resource and high-altitude landscape exploitation are underexplored research fields in archaeology. This study presents data gathered during more than 20 years of fieldwork in the Pindus range of Western Macedonia (Greece), focusing in particular on Holocene land use. The investigated territory is located...
Article
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The variability of the northern westerlies has been considered as one of the key elements for modern and past climate evolution. Their multiscale behavior and underlying control mechanisms, however, are incompletely understood, owing to the complex dynamics of Atlantic sea-level pressures. Here, we present a multi-annually resolved record of the we...
Article
Full-text available
The survey carried out along the terraces of the Khadeji and Mol Rivers in December 2021, has led to the discovery of several chert artefact concentrations, which have been attributed to different prehistoric periods and cultural complexes. This paper presents the results of the survey, the distribution of the lithic findspots, and discusses their...
Article
Full-text available
The Little Ice Age (LIA; ca. 1450–1850 C.E.) is the best documented cold period of the past millennium, characterized by high-frequency volcanism, low solar activity, and high variability of Arctic sea-ice cover. Past studies of LIA Atlantic circulation changes have referenced the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), but recent studies have noted that...
Article
Full-text available
The surveys carried out along the coasts of the island of Lemnos (Greece) have led to the discovery of new Late Epipalaeolithic sites at Agia Marina and Peristereònas. Peristereònas yielded a knapped stone assemblage that is strictly comparable with that from Ouriakos, a site located along the south-eastern coast of the same island, while the artef...
Article
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The circum-Mediterranean region is the cradle of ancient civilizations that had their roots in the Holocene. Climate change has been considered a key element that contributed to their rise or fall. The Roman Warm Period (RWP), 200 B.C. to 400 A.D., was the warmest period in Europe during the last two thousand years. Hydroclimatic change at the end...
Article
This paper presents the results of the study of the mollusc assemblage retrieved during the excavations carried out in 1997 at the early Neolithic site of Isorella (Po Valley, Northern Italy), during which a shallow refuse pit structure was brought to light. The water sieving of the entire deposit led to the collection of thousands of specimens of...
Article
Full-text available
Bàsura Cave (Toirano, NW Italy) became famous worldwide in 1950 for the discovery of prehistoric human footprints and of an impressive Ursus spelaeus bone deposit baptized by the first explorers ‘Cimitero degli Orsi’ (Bear Cemetery). Bear remains belonging to the deeper layer of the deposit have been left in situ and are now one of the principal at...
Article
Full-text available
The excavations carried out in the rock-shelter of Arma dell’Aquila by C. Richard in 1938 and 1940 led to the discovery of a thick stratigraphy, the lowermost deposit of which yielded evidence of different periods of Upper Palaeolithic occupation. The recent re-examination of the knapped stone assemblages, and the radiocarbon dating of two Palaeoli...
Preprint
Full-text available
The Little Ice Age (LIA) was the coldest period of the past millennium, characterized by high-density volcanism, low solar activity, and increased Northern Hemisphere sea-ice cover. Past studies of LIA circulation changes over the North Atlantic sector have typically referenced the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), though recent studies have noted...
Conference Paper
Questo contributo raccoglie alcune riflessioni emerse e discusse dagli scriventi durante la Tavola Rotonda dal titolo: Archeologia ed astronomia: collaborazione scientifica e didattica universitaria, organizzata apertura del XVIII Convegno della Società Italiana di Archeoastronomia, tenutosi all'Istituto di Glottologia del DIRAAS dell'Università di...
Article
Full-text available
The authors present the evidence gathered during the interdisciplinary study of several polished stone tools from some Neolithic sites in Hungary. In particular, the cutting-edged tool production (axes, adzes, chisels) involves knapping at several stages of the operational-chain within an artefact's 'life cycle'-from raw material procurement, its m...
Article
Full-text available
The excavations carried out in the rock-shelter of Arma dell’Aquila by C. Richard in 1938 and 1940 led to the discovery of a thick stratigraphy, the lowermost deposit of which yielded evidence of different periods of Upper Palaeolithic occupation. The recent re-examination of the knapped stone assemblages, and the radiocarbon dating of two Palaeoli...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The authors present the results of new chemical characterizations of Early Neolithic obsidian artefacts yielded by the excavations carried out at Cave Pollera in 1971-1973. We analysed four artefacts from the Impresso-Cardial layer III, level XXII. The finds had already been analysed by neutron activation (INAA) at the end of the 1970s during Lawre...
Article
Full-text available
The Surveys carried outin the Red Desert of Bannu Disctrict (Pakistan) led to the rediscovery of the mound of Gul Shah Tup. The small knapped stone assemblage collected from its surface consists of typical artefacts that are most probably to be attributed to the end of the Upper Palaeolithic.
Article
The Arene Candide Cave is a renowned site on the northwestern Italian coast that has yielded numerous burials dating back to the terminal phases of the Pleistocene (Epigravettian culture). Thanks to the exceptional preservation of the remains, and to the information collected during the excavations that begun in the 1940s, researchers were able to...
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents and discusses the results of the surveys and excavations carried out in the Italian Central Alps from the beginning of the Holocene to the present. More precisely, it regards the discoveries made from the end of the 1960s, when the fi rst Mesolithic sites were found. Since then a few sites were excavated and radiocarbon-dated. T...
Article
Full-text available
The Bàsura Cave (Toirano, Savona, NW Italy) hosts important cave bear bone assemblages and a numerous and varied, tracks and traces record left by humans and other producers. An outstanding element of the analysed material is represented by fossil bear fur fragments, which were found in the inner deposits of the cave, and that, to date, are virtual...
Chapter
This chapter is a review of the prehistory of the fisher-gatherers who settled along the coasts of the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. Previous research and studies have been centred mainly on the western coasts of the Indian Ocean. They have presented and discussed the general patterns and chronological frame of the coastal human adaptation sinc...
Chapter
Full-text available
The chapter summarizes the new results of the Bàsura Revisited Interdisciplinary Research Project. The integrated interpretation of recent archaeological data and palaeosurface laser scans, along with geoarchaeological, sedimentological, geochemical and archaeobotanical analyses, geometric morphometrics and digital photogrammetry, enabled us to rec...
Article
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Hódmezővásárhely–Gorzsa késő–neolit, Tisza kultúrába tartozó tell település a Tisza és a Maros folyók összefolyásának közelében, az Alföld délkeleti részén helyezkedik el. A feltárt régészeti leletanyagból több mint 1000 darab csiszolt kőeszköz és szerszámkő került elő, amelyből ez utóbbiak a csiszolt kőeszközökhöz képest háromszoros mennyiségben f...
Article
Full-text available
Around the mid-19 th century, several groups of archaeologists active in northern Italy discovered a few sites characterized by the presence of 'hut-floors' or 'pit-dwellings' (fondi di capan-na), which they attributed to a well-defined period of their Stone Age sequence. Research in the central Po Plain of Lombardy was resumed in the 1970s, allowi...
Article
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This paper describes the results of the surveys carried out along Ras Muari (Cape Monze, Karachi, Sindh) by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Lower Sindh and Las Bela in  and . The surveyed area coincides with part of the mythical land of the Ichthyophagoi, mentioned by the classical chroniclers. Many archaeological sites, mainly scatte...
Chapter
A summary of our present knowledge of the Indus Civilization, remarking all problens that are still open to question that need to be solved
Article
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The renewed Mesolithic research in the Greek mainland and the islands has been providing new insights into the lively maritime activity within the region; however, the southwest coast of Turkey has been virtually devoid of related investigations until the commencement of the Bozburun Prehistoric Survey project in 2017. The aim of this paper is to g...
Article
Full-text available
This paper describes the results of the surveys carried out along Ras Muari (Cape Monze, Karachi, Sindh) by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Lower Sindh and Las Bela in 2013 and 2014. The surveyed area coincides with part of the mythical land of the Ichthyophagoi, mentioned by the classical chroniclers. Many archaeological sites, mainly scatte...
Chapter
Full-text available
Communities of fishers and shellfish gatherers settled along the coasts of the Arabian Sea since the end of the 8th millennium BP. Traces of their presence are known from both the Sultanate of Oman and Pakistan. The surveys and excavations carried out in Oman since the 1970s, and Las Bela and Sindh (Pakistan) since the beginning of the 2000s, led t...
Article
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I reperti osteologici oggetto di questo studio provengono da un pozzetto del Neolitico antico rinvenuto nel Comune di Isorella, in località Cascina Bocche (provincia di Brescia). I materiali recuperati durante le operazioni di scavo comprendono frammenti di ceramica, industria litica e su osso, oggetti ornamentali, fauna e resti archeobotanici. La...
Article
Objective To reconstruct breastfeeding and weaning practices, metabolic stress including tuberculosis-induced wasting, and residential mobility of children in Neolithic and Metal Ages to infer their local ecologies. Materials Seven permanent teeth from individuals dated to the Neolithic, Copper, Bronze, and Iron Ages buried in nearby caves in wes...
Article
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The paper discusses the importance of 4 new gunflints discovered in the mountains around Samarina. Three are made from exogenous flint and one from local chert
Article
The multidisciplinary research team of this new project aimed at the chronological, anthropological and funerary behavior characterization of the skeletal remains unearthed from various caves in western Liguria (northwestern Italy) between the mid-1800s and the 1990s. Most of the burials and scattered bone assemblages were excavated prior to the de...
Article
Full-text available
During the last thirty years, our knowledge of the archaeology of Sindh and Las Bela in Balochistan (Pakistan) has greatly improved mainly thanks to the results of the research and excavations carried out by the Italian Archaeological Mission. Until the 1980s the prehistory of the two regions was centred upon the impressive urban remains of the Bro...
Chapter
This paper summarizes and discusses our archaeological information regarding four mountain chains of southeastern Europe: The Alps, the Carpathians and the Caucasus
Article
Full-text available
Based on the integration of laser scans, sedimentology, geochemistry, archeobotany, geometric morphometrics and photogrammetry, here we present evidence testifying that a Palaeolithic group of people explored a deep cave in northern Italy about 14 ky cal. BP. Ichnological data enable us to shed light on individual and group level behavior, social r...
Presentation
Beginning in the mid-1800s, about 200 burials and an undefined number of scattered human remains have been reported from several caves and rock shelters in western Liguria. The skeletal series, excavated following the methodology of the time, were considered likely/probably/possibly “Neolithic” or “Middle Neolithic”, and as such were studied by ant...
Article
Evidence of Neolithic occupation at Arma dell'Aquila (Finale Ligure, Italy) had been unearthed in the 1930s, with the discovery of nine burials and a number of scattered human remains. The material, however, had never been systematically studied and characterized chronologically until recently. We performed a complete re-assessment of funerary beha...
Preprint
Full-text available
Based on the integration of laser scan, sedimentology, geochemistry, archeobotany, geometric morphometrics and photogrammetry, here we present evidence testifying a Palaeolithic group that explored a deep cave in northern Italy about 14 ky cal. BP. Ichnological data enable us to shed light on individual and group level behavior, social relationship...
Article
Full-text available
A few bone implements were found during the study of the assemblages from the excavations carried out at Arma dell’Aquila at present in the collections of the Finale Museum. They are represented by points, spatulas and pendants. Some tools show that they were produced in the cave from bones of both domesticated and wild animals, as is already known...
Article
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The authors summarize the results of the interdisciplinary approach to the study of the material remains from the first half of the 1900s excavations at Arma dell’Aquila. As already emphasized by famous archaeologists of that époque, this site represents one of the focal points to understand the pace and modes of the prehistoric human settlement al...
Chapter
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In the last century, the prehistorian Pia Laviosa Zambotti was the first to point out the importance of the discoveries made by Camillo Richard at the Arma dell’Aquila rock-shelter (Finale Ligure, Savona) in 1938 and 1942. This author wrote an entire paragraph of her chapter on the archaeology of the Ligurian caves of her seminal volume entitled “L...
Chapter
Full-text available
This paper presents the results of the study of the ceramic assemblages retrieved during the excavations carried out at Arma dell’Aquila at present stored in the collections of Finale Archaeological Museum. They are represented mainly by vessels attributable to the Impressed Ware and Square-Mouthed Pottery Cultures. Some fragments show that the roc...
Chapter
Full-text available
Sindh (Pakistan) is very rich in lithic resources that were exploited in prehistory at least since the Acheulian Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age Indus Civilization. This activity left behind impressive archaeological evidence consisting of chert mines, chipping floors and blade/bladelet workshops, whose preservation is unfortunately challenged by pr...