The first Neolithic boats in the Mediterranean: The settlement of La Marmotta (Anguillara Sabazia, Lazio, Italy).

Navigation in the Mediterranean in the Neolithic is studied here through the boats that were used, the degree of technical specialisation in their construction and, above all, their chronology. After a brief explanation of the exceptional site of La Marmotta, the characteristics and chronology of the five canoes found at the settlement and one of the nautical objects linked to Canoe 1 are discussed. This will allow a reflection on the capability of Neolithic societies for navigation owing to their high technological level. This technology was an essential part in the success of their expansion, bearing in mind that in a few millennia they occupied the whole Mediterranean from Cyprus to the Atlantic seaboard of the Iberian Peninsula.

The Neolithic site "La Marmotta": DNA metabarcoding to identify the microbial deterioration of waterlogged archeological wood.

Introduction: The evaluation of biological degradation of waterlogged archeological wood is crucial to choose the conservative and protective treatments to be applied to the wooden material. The waterlogged environmental conditions are characterized by oxygen scarcity, only allowing the growth of adapted microbes capable to degrade the organic wooden material, mainly erosion bacteria and soft-rot fungi. In this work, we characterized and evaluated the biodegradation state and the microbial communities of wooden fragments preserved in storage tanks. These were preserved by waterlogging within the Neolithic village "La Marmotta," currently found under the Bracciano Lake (Lazio, Italy). Methods: The waterlogged wood samples were first identified taxonomically with an optical microscope, also allowing an evaluation of their preservation state. The microbial community was then evaluated through the sequencing of Internal Transcribed Spacer sequences for fungi and 16S for bacteria with the Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) MinION platform. Results: The identified microbial community appears to be consistent with the waterlogged samples, as many bacteria attributable to the erosion of wood and ligninolytic fungi have been sequenced. Discussion: The reported results highlight the first use of targeted metabarcoding by ONT applied to study the biodeterioration of waterlogged archeological wood.

Multiproxy study of 7500-year-old wooden sickles from the Lakeshore Village of La Marmotta, Italy.

The lakeshore site of La Marmotta is one of the most important Early Neolithic sites of Mediterranean Europe. The site is famous for the exceptional preservation of organic materials, including numerous wooden artefacts related to navigation, agriculture, textile production, and basketry. This article presents interdisciplinary research on three of the most complete and well-preserved sickles recovered from the site, yet unpublished. All the components of the tools are analysed: the stone inserts, the wooden haft and the adhesive substances used to fix the stones inside the haft. Our innovative methodology combines use-wear and microtexture analysis of stone tools through confocal microscopy, taxonomical and technological analysis of wood, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of the adhesive substances, and pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, and phytolith analysis of the remains incorporated within the adhesive. This multiproxy approach provides a significant insight into the life of these tools, from their production to their use and abandonment, providing evidence of the species of harvested plants and the conditions of the field during the harvesting.

The Strange Case of the Nuragic Offerers Bronze Statuettes: A Multi-Analytical Study.

The Nuragic civilization (Sardinia, Italy, XVIII-VIII B.C) developed a flourishing bronze metallurgy with strong connections with other civilizations from the Mediterranean basin. Within the large bronze production, there are some peculiar representations of human figures, known in the archaeological environment of Sardinia as bronzetti, depicting warriors, priests, and offerers. In this paper, an interesting couple of Nuragic statuettes representing offerers, one from the Pigorini Museum in Rome and another from the Musei Reali in Turin, were analyzed. They have been investigated with X-ray fluorescence integrated with Monte Carlo simulations (XRF-MC). The combined methodology provides more accurate results, ranging from the structural characterization to the identification of the corrosion layers to the estimation of the composition of the alloy of the artifact. One of the most striking results regards the heads of the offerers: both heads are covered with a thick iron-based layer, even though the whole artifacts are made of a copper alloy. To understand the reason behind this peculiar corrosion patina, several hypotheses have been considered, including the possibility that these iron mineralizations are the consequence of an ancient superficial treatment, intending to confer a chromatic effect on the figurine's head.

Direct dating reveals the early history of opium poppy in western Europe.

This paper aims to define the first chrono-cultural framework on the domestication and early diffusion of the opium poppy using small-sized botanical remains from archaeological sites, opening the way to directly date minute short-lived botanical samples. We produced the initial set of radiocarbon dates directly from the opium poppy remains of eleven Neolithic sites (5900-3500 cal BCE) in the central and western Mediterranean, northwestern temperate Europe, and the western Alps. When possible, we also dated the macrobotanical remains originating from the same sediment sample. In total, 22 samples were taken into account, including 12 dates directly obtained from opium poppy remains. The radiocarbon chronology ranges from 5622 to 4050 cal BCE. The results show that opium poppy is present from at least the middle of the sixth millennium in the Mediterranean, where it possibly grew naturally and was cultivated by pioneer Neolithic communities. Its dispersal outside of its native area was early, being found west of the Rhine in 5300-5200 cal BCE. It was introduced to the western Alps around 5000-4800 cal BCE, becoming widespread from the second half of the fifth millennium. This research evidences different rhythms in the introduction of opium poppy in western Europe.

Correction: Migration, adaptation, innovation: The spread of Neolithic harvesting technologies in the Mediterranean.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232455.].

Migration, adaptation, innovation: The spread of Neolithic harvesting technologies in the Mediterranean.

This article explores the changes that occurred in harvesting technology during the dispersal of the Neolithic in the Mediterranean basin. It does so through technological and use-wear analysis of flaked stone tools from archaeological sites dated between ca. 7000 and 5000 cal BCE, from the Aegean Sea to the westernmost coasts of Portugal. The main goal is to analyse the transformations that occurred in the harvesting toolkit. Our study reveals dynamics of continuity and change in sickles at a Mediterranean scale, resulting from adaptations of the migrant groups to the newly occupied territories and from processes of technological innovation. Adaptations in the production system of the inserts and in their use-pattern occurred in relation to lithic raw material availability and knappers' skills, but also in relation to the scale of production and farming techniques. A major shift took place in the north-western Mediterranean arc with the diffusion of parallel-hafted inserts, probably as a result of heterogeneous phenomena including the diffusion of new groups, technical transfers, establishment of new interaction networks and new systems of lithic production.