Marta Mariotti Lippi

Marta Mariotti Lippi
University of Florence | UNIFI · Dipartimento di Biologia

PhD

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161
Publications
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Publications

Publications (161)
Conference Paper
The restoration and the diagnostic analysis performed on a Mongolian felt from a private collection in Florence allowed us to increase the knowledge about the making process of its production. Several fruits, seeds and wooden fragments were detected in the textile, visible from the surface. The analysis of the plant remains carried out by the Bi...
Article
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Megachile (Chalicodoma) parietina (Geoffroy, 1785) is a Palearctic solitary bee included in the Red List of some central European Countries. Females build durable nests, reused year after year, by mixing soil with a salivary secretion. Like for most solitary bees, the resources contained within M. parietina nests attract several other insects which...
Article
Evidence of plant food processing is a significant indicator of the human ability to exploit environmental resources. The recovery of starch grains associated with use-wear on Palaeolithic grinding tools offers proof of a specific technology for making flour among Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. Here we present the analysis of five grindstones from t...
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A first synthesis of available data for the period of Rome’s expansion in Italy (about 400–29 b.c.e.) shows the role of climate and environment in early Roman imperialism. Although global indices suggest a warmer phase with relatively few short-term climate events occuring around the same time as the expansion, local data emphasize the highly varia...
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The human microbiome has recently become a valuable source of information about host life and health. To date little is known about how it may have evolved during key phases along our history, such as the Neolithic transition towards agriculture. Here, we shed light on the evolution experienced by the oral microbiome during this transition, compari...
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A lush vegetation develops around the numerous wadi estuaries interrupting the Dhofari coast in Southern Oman. Many estuaries still house mangroves of Avicennia marina (Forssk.) Vierh., a very fragile ecosystem that is currently under threat in this area. A rather rich flora, strongly affected by the influence of the monsoon, grows in other estuari...
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Quantitative reconstructions of past land cover are necessary to determine the processes involved in climate-human-land-cover interactions. We present the first temporally continuous and most spatially extensive pollen-based land-cover reconstruction for Europe over the Holocene (last 11 700 cal yr BP). We describe how vegetation cover has been qua...
Article
Residue analyses on a Gravettian grinding tool recovered at Grotta Paglicci (32.614±429 cal BP), Southern Italy, have confirmed that early modern humans collected and processed a variety of wild plants for food purposes. The recording of starch grains attributable to wild oat caryopses (Avena cf. barbata) expands our information about the food plan...
Article
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...
Conference Paper
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In this paper we focus on the technology related to wild plant food processing. In the course of the last ten years, the production of flour from wild plants has been unequivocally documented starting from the Upper Palaeolithic. This has opened up new prospects for studying both the nutrition and the technological skills of Homo sapiens in Europe...
Article
This study presents the results of complementary isotopic and dental calculus analyses of a number of individuals buried in two cemeteries of Roman and medieval chronology in Lamon, northern Italy. Eleven individuals from the Roman cemetery of San Donato and six from the medieval cemetery of San Pietro are presented and discussed. The results sugge...
Chapter
THE OLDEST EVIDENCE OF PLANT FOOD PROCESSING IN THE PALAEOLITHIC - Recent studies have cast light on the importance of the vegetal component in the Palaeolithic. This finding is based largely on the evidence of isotopic analyses, on the vegetal residue found in the sites and the starch grains found in tooth tartar and on tools used for grinding. Th...
Conference Paper
THE DIET DURING THE PALAEOLITHIC: A CASE STUDY FROM GROTTA PAGLICCI (RIGNANO GARGANICO – FG) – It is usually assumed that the diet of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer communities was based almost exclusively on the consumption of meat and of other animal resources (e.g. marrow). Recent studies carried out on dental calculus, as well as on organic resid...
Conference Paper
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Beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and stone pine (Pinus pinea L.) are quite different trees, at present widespread in Italy, the first often in primeval forests, the second in monospecific artificial coastal woods. The modern Italian beech population can be distinguished genetically from the north European one, and spread from few refugia located in centr...
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The recovery of inaperturate pollen from functionally female flowers in archaeological layers opens the question of a possible pollen-based discrimination between wild and domesticated Vitis vinifera in prehistoric times. Pollen analysis applied to archaeology has not routinely considered the existence of pollen dimorphism in Vitis, a well-known tr...
Article
Urban green areas can improve people’s quality of life, although airborne pollen may provoke allergic disease. The record of the pollen rain in different sites within a city can be useful to understand the distance reached by the pollen of different plants and its amount. Moss cushions are natural gravimetric pollen traps and represent a useful and...
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Paper wasps (Polistes dominula), parasitized by the strepsipteran Xenos vesparum, are castrated and desert the colony to gather on plants where the parasite mates and releases primary larvae, thus completing its lifecycle. One of these plants is the trumpet creeper Campsis radicans: in a previous study the majority of all wasps collected from this...
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Airborne pollen assemblage depends on the land cover of the area surrounding the volumetric trap and the flow of air masses. In urban contexts, the amount of airborne pollen is the result of the contribution of both local green areas and extra-urban vegetation, in addition to wind direction and speed. The present study focused on the combined effec...
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Abstract During the Classical Period (300 BC–400 AD), the Indian Ocean emerged as one of the largest hubs of ancient international trade. For a long period, these contacts were described from a Rome-centric point of view, looking at the connections between Rome and India. However, recent studies have demonstrated that the Roman-Indo connection was...
Article
Archaeological excavations of the ancient city of Sumhuram (2nd century BC- 5th century AD), a port along the frankincense trade route in Dhofar, Southern Oman, offered the chance to gain new insights into the diet of the inhabitants. In spite of the mainly sandy nature of the sediments in the site, which does not favour good preservation of plant...
Article
In Italy, aerobiological monitoring is usually carried out by the regional agencies for environmental protection (ARPA [Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione Ambientale]) using volumetric samplers. Another widespread method for the study of airborne pollen is the analysis of moss cushions, generally used to relate pollen rain to flora and vegetation....
Article
Six tablets, probably an ancient collyrium, were discovered in a tin pyxis recovered during the archaeological excavation of the so-called Pozzino shipwreck found in the Baratti gulf, near Piombino (Tuscany, Italy). The tablets were previously studied from a historical point of view; micro-morphological and chemical analyses were then performed to...
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Cupressaceae is one of the most widespread families in the Mediterranean region, widely used as ornamental trees both in cities and in extra urban areas. The family is also known to produce a considerable amount of pollen grains. Nevertheless, Cupressaceae pollen is generally scarce in sediments and it is attested to be one of the most underreprese...
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An abundance of plant remains (pollen, seeds/fruits and wood) and wood artefacts was found during the excavation of an Etruscan-Roman well located at Cetamura del Chianti in Tuscany, Italy, which contained rich cultural and ecofact assemblages in a stratified context. The findings provide evidence for the presence of a mixed oak forest during the t...
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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...
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Key message The different germination behaviours of the seeds under induced water limitations may be related to the different adaptive capacities acquired at the diverse collection sites, as a response to the different environmental parameters. The island of Pianosa resulted the most performant in term of germination responses and the co-occurrence...
Article
A paleosurface with a concentration of wooden-, bone-, and stone-tools interspersed among an accumulation of fossil bones, largely belonging to the straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus, was found at the bottom of a pool, fed by hot springs, that was excavated at Poggetti Vecchi, near Grosseto (Tuscany, Italy). The site is radiometrically...
Poster
In the summer of 2018, during the repaving works of Piazza della Repubblica in Florence (Italy), the excavations revealed anthropized levels from the Roman age up to today. The modern Piazza lies upon the ancient foro of Florentia, a roman colony founded in 59 BC. The foro was a paved square adorned with monumental buildings, among which the Capito...
Article
Research and Methods applied Reynoutria x bohemica is an invasive species, causing significant damages to native ecosystems in North America and Europe. In this work, we performed an in‐depth micromorphological characterization of the extrafloral nectaries (EFN), during their secretory and post‐secretory phases, in combination with field monitoring...
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This paper compares changes in vegetation structure and composition (using synthetic fossil pollen data) with proxy data for population levels (including settlements and radiocarbon dates) over the course of the last 10 millennia in Tyrrhenian central Italy. These data show generalised patterns of clearance of woodland in response both to early agr...
Article
Starting from the multifaceted meaning of “Mediterranean”, this thematic review wishes to reconnect the palaeobotanical with the phytogeographical approach in the reconstruction of the Mediterranean Forest of the past. The use of the term “Mediterranean” is somewhat ambiguous in its common use, and has not an unequivocal meaning in different resear...
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The BRAIN (Botanical Records of Archaeobotany Italian Network) database and network was developed by the cooperation of archaeobotanists working on Italian archaeological sites. Examples of recent research including pollen or other plant remains in analytical and synthetic papers are reported as an exemplar reference list. This paper retraces the m...
Conference Paper
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Archaeobotanical investigations at Gonfienti, a Middle Bronze Age-Iron Age settlement in the mid-Arno River Valley (Tuscany, Italy), revealed the human activity in the territory, in particular crop cultivation and plant gathering from the wild. The progressive decrease of the plants of wet environment hints to interventions for soil reclamation aro...
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The study concerns the experimental grindstones used to understand the dynamics of the use of the grinding tools found in the Gravettian camp of Bilancino (Florence), which for the first time in Europe documented the production of flour in the Upper Palaeolithic. The identification of starch grains on these tools, largely referable to Typha sp., r...
Article
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...
Poster
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Background. In 2015, a paper on the archaeobotany as a key tool ‘for the understanding of the bio-cultural diversity of the Italian landscape’ gave rise to a new initiative, the realization of the first cooperative network of archaeobotanists and palynologists working on archaeological sites located in Italy. The Botanical Record of Archaeobotany I...
Article
Work on thermal pools at Poggetti Vecchi in Grosseto, Italy, exposed an up to 3-meter-thick succession of seven sedimentary units. Unit 2 in the lower portion of the succession contained vertebrate bones, mostly of the straight-tusked elephant, Palaeoloxodon antiquus , commingled with stone, bone, and wooden tools. Thermal carbonates overlying Unit...
Article
Sedum L. (Crassulaceae) is a large and taxonomically difficult genus whose delimitation and classification are under debate. Due to the controversial results of previous cytological, morphological, and molecular studies, further investigations are needed in order to gain a shared taxonomy of the current recognized species clades. In the present pap...
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Al-Wu'Ayra castle is a Crusader fortified settlement located near Petra in the southern Jordanian governorate of Ma'an. Five stratigraphic sections were excavated in the archaeological area at al-Wu'Aira to better understand the environmental conditions prevailing during the Crusader settlement and the reasons for the rapid abandonment of the site....
Article
The species of Helichrysum sect. Stoechadina (Asteraceae) are well-known for their secondary metabolite content and the characteristic aromatic bouquets. In the wild, populations exhibit a wide phenotypic plasticity which makes critical the circumscription of species and infraspecific ranks. Previous investigations on Helichrysum italicum complex f...
Article
Archaeological excavations in the docking site of Pisa (Central Italy) unearthed several shipwrecks which dated back to the Roman time, from the Republican to the Imperial periods. The recent identification of the woods used for building ships D, E, H, I and P, in addition to data of the previous analysis of ships A, B, C, F, L, revealed the utiliz...
Article
The importance of broad ecological perspectives has been well recognised with regard to the spread of alien species. However, less attention has been paid to single plant-animal relationships such as the mechanism through which interactions with pollinators take place, which is responsible for the evolution of new mutualistic relationships and the...
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Germination is a key trait promoting species invasiveness and has become a major goal in invasion ecology. In this study, the effects of different scarification methods and temperature regimes on seed germination performance of the invasive exotic tree Robinia pseudoacacia L. were investigated. Ripe seeds were gathered from six collection sites in...
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Significance The Early Gravettian inhabitants of Grotta Paglicci (sublayer 23 A) are currently the most ancient hunter–gatherers able to process plants to obtain flour. They also developed targeted technologies for complex processing of the plant portions before grinding. The present study testifies for the first time, to our knowledge, the perform...
Article
The study of the present-day pollen rain in modern sites reveals the relationship between vegetation and relative pollen spectra, and provides a useful key for the interpretation of the past pollen records resulting from palaeoenvironmental researches. The modern sites, or “modern analogues”, are accurately selected and considered paradigmatic mode...
Article
In Italy, alien acacias have been introduced for ornamental and reforestation purposes, and some species became invasive occupying patches of the Mediterranean landscape. On the Island of Elba (Central Italy), Acacia dealbata and A. pycnantha form dense stands at short distance, showing an impressive massive flowering at the end of the winter/early...
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Plant Resources in the Palaeolithic" is a research project focused on the technologies for plant food processing as documented by use-wear traces and plant residue on grinding tools found in European sites. Many researchers have been involved in the project, which encompasses the fields of archaeology, botany and food processing technologies, withi...
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a b s t r a c t "Plant Resources in the Palaeolithic" is a research project focused on the technologies for plant food processing as documented by use-wear traces and plant residue on grinding tools found in European sites. Many researchers have been involved in the project, which encompasses the fields of archaeology, botany and food processing te...
Poster
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Negli ultimi decenni si è registrato un incremento nel numero di ricerche deputate alla comprensione dello sviluppo ed espansione delle specie aliene (AS), soprattutto in risposta alla preoccupazione, a livello internazionale, del rapido aumento e potenziale d'invasione di queste specie. L'approccio più comune ha visto prendere in considerazione la...
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The present study is a review of the archaeobotanical analyses carried out in the last decade at the three ancient Roman port/dock system sites of Pisae, Portus, and Neapolis. Pollen, plant macrofossils (leaf, wood, seed/fruit macroremains) and wood constituting the shipwrecks were considered, and the results, partly unpublished, integrated and int...
Data
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Over the last millennia, the land between the Alps and the Mediterranean sea, characterized by extraordinary habitat diversity, has seen an outstanding cross-cultural development. They cover a large time scale, from the prehistoric through the protohistoric Iron Age, right up to the historical and modern times, and a variety of contexts that make t...
Data
Over the last millennia, the land between the Alps and the Mediterranean sea, characterized by extraordinary habitat diversity, has seen an outstanding cross-cultural development. They cover a large time scale, from the prehistoric through the protohistoric Iron Age, right up to the historical and modern times, and a variety of contexts that make t...
Article
Full-text available
The mature megasporocyte of various gymnosperms appears as a clearly polarized cell. With reference to the genus Larix Miller (Pinaceae), previous LM observations showed the presence of starch accumulations in the chalazal cytoplasm in L. occidentalis. A peculiar polarization, characterized by the presence of «reticular plasma» in the micropylar cy...
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Two different clones of Iris pallida Lam., male-fertile and male-sterile, are present in Tuscany. In the male-sterile clone, the degeneration of the fertile tissue takes place at the dyad or tetrad stage. Comparative analysis of the anthers, during microsporogenesis, revealed that the tapetal cells of the two clones behaved differently. In the male...
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The whole plant of Primula obconica, one of the most common plants responsible for contact dermatitis, is covered by long uniseriate trichomes. At the blooming time, few of them, mostly on the calix, present a big amount of secretion on their apex. The main phases of the formation and storage of the secretion were investigated by light microscopy,...
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It is known that in Taxus (Taxaceae) megasporogenesis is carried out, for the most part, in a single megasporocyte. Upon maturity, this cell presents a grouping of the greater part of both the mitochondria and the amylipherous reserves in its chalazal cytoplasm. The chalazal megaspore, which inherits a larger supply of the said organelles, gives ri...
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The history of Mediterranean vegetation can be outlined using pollen grains contained in lacustrine, marine and other sediments. These sediments have recorded very important vegetation changes during recent geological times. For example, during the last 6 Ma (million years), the effects of different events acting at regional (e.g. the Messinian sal...
Article
Archaeological excavations in Florence (Italy) offered the opportunity of collecting archaeobotanical data along stratigraphic sequences and pits from late Roman to Middle Ages; until now, no archaeobotanical data of this range of time were available for Florence. To achieve a more comprehensive reconstruction of the antique landscape and of the pl...
Poster
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Alien invasive species are a topic widely discussed, since commercial exchanges and international trading are strongly influencing local fauna and flora. For plants, some concern regards those species imported for their ornamental value or for forestation purpose and progressively spreading into the wild (Fig.1). In Tuscany (Italy), a dedicated pr...
Data
To better understand the roots of Holland Reference Services in two divisional libraries, the Humanities Library and the Social Sciences Library, the author has culled the Archive in honor of Pauline Lilje in order to show readers some of his favorite original documents from the '70s.
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Aim This paper aims to project areas of olive cultivation into future scenarios. Accordingly, we first asked the question whether global circulation models ( GCMs ) are able to reproduce past climatic conditions and we used historical ranges of olive cultivation as a palaeoclimate proxy. Location The M editerranean basin. Methods We used an ecolo...
Article
In archaeology, the discovery of ancient medicines is very rare, as is knowledge of their chemical composition. In this paper we present results combining chemical, mineralogical, and botanical investigations on the well-preserved contents of a tin pyxis discovered onboard the Pozzino shipwreck (second century B.C.). The contents consist of six fla...