THE EARLIEST PEOPLING OF PENINSULAR ITALY, SARDINIA AND SICILY

ABSTRACT Fauna richness and diversity strongly influenced the earliest human peopling of Italy – or lack of it. There is so far no evidence of any colonisation of peninsular Italy before 1 Ma, when mighty predators such as Pachycrocuta brevirostris and Canis (Xenocyon) falconeri were active, and a sparse and controversial archaeological record from 1 Ma to 0.65 Ma. We suggest that a favourable temporal window opened during the early Middle Pleistocene, when the renovated Galerian faunas were characterised by few large predators, and by increasing numbers of middle-sized herbivores. Furthermore, biomass was possibly higher. After 0.65 Ma, the archaeological record includes well-dated sites which yielded ample evidence of human activity. In contrast with peninsular Italy, all over the Pleistocene Sicily is characterised by a small number of mammal species, most of them endemic, and Sardinia by even less animal diversity. In the two main islands, uncontroversial and well dated evidence of human peopling is of late upper Pleistocene age.