Jacopo Moggi-Cecchi

University of Florence | UNIFI · Dipartimento di Biologia

The study of sexual dimorphism in human crania has important applications in the fields of human evolution and human osteology. Current, the identification of sex from cranial morphology relies on manual visual inspection of identifiable anatomical features, which can lead to bias due to user’s expertise. We developed a landmark-based approach to a...

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...

More than 150 hominin teeth, dated to ∼330-241 thousand years ago, were recovered during the 2013-2015 excavations of the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system, South Africa. These fossils comprise the first large single-site sample of hominin teeth from the Middle Pleistocene of Africa. Though scattered remains attributable to Homo sapie...

Complete Neanderthal skeletons are almost unique findings. A very well-preserved specimen of this kind was discovered in 1993 in the deepest recesses of a karstic system near the town of Altamura in Southern Italy. We present here a detailed description of the cranium, after we virtually extracted it from the surrounding stalagmites and stalactites...

Human remains can tell us the story of single individuals as well as entire populations, and they can be informative on cultural practices. Thus, they are part of our cultural heritage. The management of human remains as cultural heritage must consider the needs of preservation, research, and dissemination. The use of 3D technologies provides advan...

Abstract:Human skeletal remains are an immense source of data to describe human biodiversity with an intrinsic complexity due to the multifactorial origin of human variability. Evolution and ontogeny produced complex patterns of variation through contingent events and adaptations. Multivariate approaches have been widely adopted in physical anthrop...

This study investigates changes in dietary practices and subsistence strategies in Bronze Age Italy integrating isotopic analyses with archaeobotanical and archaeozoological data. By investigating food habits, we contribute to reconstructing human lifestyles and highlighting possible links with the economic/social organization when the rise of stra...

Humans evolved in the dynamic landscapes of Africa under conditions of pronounced climatic, geological and environmental change during the past 7 million years. This book brings together detailed records of the paleontological and archaeological sites in Africa that provide the basic evidence for understanding the environments in which we evolved....

Objectives Twenty‐four dental specimens from the Drimolen Main Quarry (DMQ) are described. This increases the number of DMQ Paranthropus robustus specimens from 48 to 63 and DMQ Homo specimens from 8 to 12. This allows reassessment of the proposed differences between the DMQ P. robustus assemblage and that of Swartkrans. Analysis conducted assesses...

Artificial cranial modification (ACM) and trepanation are medical treatments with a long history in many human societies. Here, we present data on ACM and trepanation in pre-Hispanic Peruvian populations from the collections housed at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, University of Florence, Italy. The Museum has a rich and important collec...

Multidisciplinary analyses on ancient dental calculus revealed the possibility to reconstruct habits and diet of ancient human populations, investigate individual health status, as well as provide information on past environments. In the present study we applied both metagenomic and microscopic analysis on ancient human dental calculus in order to...

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...

Although the amount of data on the Italian Copper Age has increased significantly in the last decades, little is known about the relationship between humans and the environment. Material culture suggests the occurrence of significant social interactions throughout the Italian Peninsula, while the funerary practices indicate that Copper Age groups w...

Although the early hominin species Australopithecus robustus has been known for more than eight decades and is represented by hundreds of fossils from sites in South Africa, a complete, well-preserved skull has been elusive. DNH 7, an adult cranium and mandible from the Drimolen site, was identified, on the basis of its small size, as a presumptive...

Objectives The purpose of this study is to help elucidate the taxonomic relationship between Homo naledi and other hominins. Materials and Methods Homo naledi deciduous maxillary and mandibular molars from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa were compared to those of Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus afarensis, Paranthropus robustus, Par...

The Carabelli trait is a dental feature that forms along the lingual margin of the protocone of deciduous and permanent maxillary molars. It is variably expressed, ranging from a small pit or furrow to a large cusp, and its development seems to be associated with crown size and molar cusp spatial configuration. The degree of expression of the Carab...

The Copper Age in Italy (4000-2300 BCE) is characterised by well-defined cultural groups, each presenting distinctive features in the material culture, as well as in the funerary ritual. Tombs, mostly in artificial and natural caves, are gathered in necropolises that showing long use, representing the most available prevailing archaeological contex...

Dental calculus from archaeological samples is a rich source of ancient biomolecules, such as DNA, proteins, and microremains, mainly related to food. Focusing on different contents, laboratory procedures require specific treatments that necessitate the same material and are generally mutually exclusive; therefore, the low quantity of the starting...

Objective: This study evaluates patterns of human growth in the Neolithic to make inferences about environmental correlates of developmental disturbances. Materials: 33 children/adolescents from the Neolithic of Liguria (Italy), 29 of which date between 4,800-4,400 cal BCE. Methods: Neolithic patterns of growth are compared with a modern sampl...

Objective: To assess developmental disturbances through the analysis of linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) frequency and to infer environmental stress and life history within Neolithic communities from Liguria (Italy). Materials: 43 unworn/minimally worn permanent anterior teeth of 13 individuals recovered from nearby caves and dated to c. 4800-4400...

Many cultural assets are in risky situations and they are destined to disappear. Sometimes problems are caused by the anthropic component (e.g. wars) or by natural disasters (e.g. earthquakes and landslides). At other times the cause of deterioration is due to the slow and inexorable action of atmospheric agents and other natural factors present in...

Fossil footprints are of great interest. A number of features help to identify their makers and can be used to investigate on biological and ecological issues. This is of crucial interest in palaeoanthropology, particularly in view of the emergence of our peculiar pattern of posture and locomotion. However, hominin footprints are rare and most of t...

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...

In 2013, 2014 new hominin remains were uncovered in the Dinaledi chamber of the Rising Star cave system in South Africa. In 2015 Berger and colleagues identified these remains as belonging to a new species Homo naledi (Berger et al., 2015). Subsequent comparative studies of the skull, postcrania and permanent dentition have supported this taxonomic...

Objectives: Dental caries is often perceived as a modern human disease. However, their presence is documented in many early human groups, various nonhuman primates and, increasingly, our hominin ancestors and relatives. In this study, we describe an antemortem lesion on the root of a Paranthropus robustus third molar from Drimolen, South Africa, w...

In 1976 and 2014, scientists reported hominin footprints in Pliocene volcanic deposits at Laetoli, northeastern Tanzania. They hypothesized that the footprints belong to the extinct hominin species Australopithecus afarensis. Not only have the footprints shaped scientists' understanding of human biological evolution, but they have also placed Laeto...

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...

Objectives: Dental caries is often perceived as a modern human disease. However, their presence is documented in many early human groups, various non-human primates and, increasingly, our hominin ancestors and relatives. In this study we describe an antemortem lesion on the root of a Paranthropus robustus third molar from Drimolen, South Africa, wh...

In recent years, the ever more frequent studies on the Bronze Age in northern Italy have shown the importance of this area for cultural and economic exchanges between central and southern Europe. The aim of the present multidisciplinary study was to define the health, behaviour and dietary habits in an Early-Middle Bronze Age skeletal sample from t...

La transition vers le mode de vie néolithique (économie basée sur la domestication des plantes et animaux) a impacté en manière significative l’état sanitaire, l'alimentation, et l'activité humaine. Les nouvelles stratégies de subsistance ont permis l’introduction d’aliments de sevrage qui ont réduit la durée de l'allaitement et limité les interval...

Objectives A prevailing hypothesis in paleoanthropology is that early Pleistocene hominin bones were accumulated in South African caves by carnivores, which used those shelters, and the trees surrounding them, as refuge and feeding sites. We tested this hypothesis at the site of Drimolen, by comparing its hominin age‐at‐death distribution to that o...

Pleistocene and early Holocene human fossils in Tuscany are very few and poorly described. Any new information is thus an important contribution to our knowledge of the peopling of this region. Here we present a revision of the human fossil remains from the Riparo Fredian, a site located in Garfagnana and first published by Boschian et al., (1995)....

With the shift to a Neolithic way of life, humans experienced a major change in environmental stressors, probably caused by changes in diet and subsistence, population packing, and the spread of new pathogens. Developing individuals are the most susceptible to environmental stressors, and are therefore the most representative sample to describe to...

Pleistocene and early Holocene human fossils in Tuscany are very few and poorly described, with remains from only three sites: Buca del Tasso, Vado all’Arancio and Riparo Fredian [1]. Any new information is thus an important contribution to our knowledge of the peopling of this region. Here we present a revision of the human fossil remains from Rip...

In the African Pleistocene, the fossil evidence for early Homo sapiens populations is still relatively limited. Here we present two additional specimens (two deciduous teeth) recovered from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits of Sibudu Cave (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa). We describe their morphology and metrics, using three-dimensional models of th...

During the Second World War, on 24th March 1944, 335 Italians were massacred near Rome by the occupying forces of Nazi Germany. Four months later forensic examination led to the identification of 323 out of 335 victims. After approximately 60 years, the identification of the remaining unidentified twelve victims began with anthropological and genet...

Video tutorial showing how to build a complete human endocast in few minutes.

Objectives Exact symmetry and perfect balance between opposite jaw halves, as well as between antagonistic teeth, is not frequently observed in natural masticatory systems. Research results show that asymmetry in our body, skull, and jaws is often related to genetic, epigenetic, environmental and individual ontogenetic factors. Our study aims to pr...

Objectives We present two new automatic tools, developed under the R environment, to reproduce the internal and external structures of bony elements. The first method, Computer‐Aided Laser Scanner Emulator (CA‐LSE), provides the reconstruction of the external portions of a 3D mesh by simulating the action of a laser scanner. The second method, Auto...

Real symmetry and perfect balance between opposite jaw halves and antagonistic teeth is not the reality in the masticatory system. Research results show that natural asymmetry in our body, skull and jaws is related to non‐genetic environmental and individual ontogenetic factors. However, in modern human groups it seems we see an increase of variabi...

Plant microremains were recovered from dental calculus of nine individuals found in the Final Copper-Early Bronze Age burial contexts of Grotta dello Scoglietto, a site in Southern Tuscany. Starch and phytolith analyses provided information about the plant use in the diet of a small but significant subset of the local population. The consumption of...

In recent years, the use of CT-scans in physical anthropology yielded huge improvements of the analysis of skeletal remains. Such process made the “virtual anthropology” one of the most important approaches in the study of human evolution and bioarcheology. The virtual reproduction of inner volumes has become a frequent procedure for studying the i...

The human ear ossicles, despite their very tiny dimension, have long been a source of interest and fascination to anatomists and anthropologists. Indeed they are a challenging object of study due to their characteristic shape and reduced dimensions which determine the need of a high resolution acquisition. The three ossicles feature a complex blood...

Nowadays, stable carbon (∂13C) and nitrogen (∂15N) isotope analyses play a central role in archaeological studies aimed at inferring palaeodiet. As a matter of fact, if it is true we are what we eat, then isotopic ratios detected in a consumer’s tissues allow us to trace back its dietary habits. Reconstructing the contribution of specific food sour...

Objectives: Early evidence for the treatment of dental pathology is found primarily among food-producing societies associated with high levels of oral pathology. However, some Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers show extensive oral pathology, suggesting that experimentation with therapeutic dental interventions may have greater antiquity. Here we rep...

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 subsis...

Statistics report. Summary of the Mann-Whitney U test for human carbon and nitrogen data according to sex. The three subsets are kept separate. For the Ushuaia subset 7 individuals were excluded, as no sex estimate was available. (DOCX)

Biplot of stable carbon and nitrogen data. Mean humans∂13C and ∂15N values (with sd) for pre-contact (n = 14) and post-contact (n = 28) subsets. (DOCX)

Objectives: Early evidence for the treatment of dental pathology is found primarily among food-producing societies associated with high levels of oral pathology. However, some Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers show extensive oral pathology, suggesting that experimentation with therapeutic dental interventions may have greater antiquity. Here, we r...

ELife digest Fossil footprints are extremely useful tools in the palaeontological record. Their physical features can help to identify their makers, but can also be used to infer biological information. How did the track-maker move? How large was it? How fast was it going? Footprints of hominins (namely the group to which humans and our ancestors b...

The aim of this research is to gain insights on the progression timeline of osteoarticular tuberculosis (TB) in people from the Neolithic period by using skeletal traits that are independent of the bony lesions. The body proportions and postcranial mechanical strength of bones from two individuals from Liguria in northwestern Italy (Arene Candide 5...

Mandrills are one of the few Old World primates to show scent-marking. We combined ethological and chemical approaches to improve our understanding of this behavior in 3 zoo-managed groups. We observed the olfactory behavior performed by adults and adolescents (N = 39) for 775h. We investigated the volatile components of sternal scent-marks using g...

This research aims at delineating the dietary practices in Central Italy during the Bronze Age. The study of food choices is a mean for investigating palaeoenvironmental agricultural and economic activities and social relationships, which have been little explored until now in Italy from this specific perspective. A previous study conducted by Tafu...

Isernia La Pineta (south-central Italy, Molise) is one of the most important archaeological localities of the Middle Pleistocene in Western Europe. It is an extensive open-air site with abundant lithic industry and faunal remains distributed across four stratified archaeosurfaces that have been found in two sectors of the excavation (3c, 3a, 3s10 i...

Studies of sensory capacities in past life forms have offered new insights into their adaptations and lifeways. Audition is particularly amenable to study in fossils because it is strongly related to physical properties that can be approached through their skeletal structures. We have studied the anatomy of the outer and middle ear in the early hom...

Prehistoric dental treatments have been known from the Neolithic 9,000-7,500 years before present (BP), when the adoption of early farming culture caused an increase of carious lesions [2]. Only a few early cases have been documented, some were characterized by in vivo perforation of the crown surface made by a drilling tool. Here we document the e...

Prehistoric dental treatments have been known from the Neolithic 9,000-7,500 years before present (BP), when the adoption of early farming culture caused an increase of carious lesions. Only a few early cases have been documented, some were characterized by in vitro perforation of the crown surface made by a drilling tool. Here we document the earl...

Prehistoric dental treatments have been known from the Neolithic - 9,000-7,500 years before present (BP) -, when the adoption of early farming culture caused an increase of carious lesions. They were extremely rare, and the few documented cases were characterized by in vivo perforation of the crown surface made by a drilling tool. Here we document...

The site of Grotta dello Scoglietto (Grosseto) has been investigated in 1948, 1950 and 1952. Due to the presence of a large amount of burials and of a substantial number of remains with evidence of surgical interventions (for instance cranial trepanations) , the site is considered an exceptional area as far as the Early Bronze Age of Central Italy...

The aim of this study is to define the subsistence strategies and dietary habits of the Early-Middle Bronze Age population of Ballabio (3230 ± 90 BP). This archaeological site, excavated in a rock shelter at 700 m a.s.l., was discovered in 2004 during a geological survey. Skeletal remains were found in two adjacent funerary structures, interpreted...