An attempt to separate anthropic and natural fire signals in an archaeological context—The case of the Mousterian site Grotta Reali (Rocchetta a Volturno Molise, Central Italy)

doi:10.1007/s11707-009-0014-8

Front Earth Sci Chin

0, Vol.

Issue () : 171-174 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-009-0014-8

RESEARCH ARTICLE

An attempt to separate anthropic and natural fire signals in an archaeological context—The case of the Mousterian site Grotta Reali (Rocchetta a Volturno Molise, Central Italy)

Qiaoyu CUI^1,2(

), Laurent MARQUER³, Marta ARZARELLO¹, Vincent LEBRETON³

1. Dipartimento di Biologia ed Evoluzione, C.so Ercole I d'Este 32- 44100 Ferrara, Italy; 2. Center for Arid Environment and Paleoclimate Research (CAEP), Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China; 3. Département de Préhistoire, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, UMR 5198 du CNRS, 1 rue René Panhard, 75013 Paris, France

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Abstract

This paper presents an image analysis method for automated quantification of charcoal total area, focusing on the charcoal fractions less than 160 ?m observed on 14 pollen slides from Grotta Reali samples. Four fire signals were recorded with 4 high values in the microcharcoal concentration curve. On the basis of modern microcharcoal study, mean length/width ratio of the microcharcoal particles was applied in an archeological context as an indicator of vegetal type (wood, grass or leaves). Therefore, the 4 fire signals were separated into two types: high concentration with high length/width ratio, and high concentration with low length/width ratio. Two fire signals might be interpreted as anthropic fire based on hearth or combustion areas, as inferred from archeological remains.

Keywords microcharcoal fire signal Grotta Reali Italy

Corresponding Author(s): CUI Qiaoyu,Email:qiao yu_cui@yahoo.com.cn

Issue Date: 05 June 2009

Cite this article:

Qiaoyu CUI,Laurent MARQUER,Marta ARZARELLO, et al. An attempt to separate anthropic and natural fire signals in an archaeological context—The case of the Mousterian site Grotta Reali (Rocchetta a Volturno Molise, Central Italy)[J]. Front Earth Sci Chin, 0, (): 171-174.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/10.1007/s11707-009-0014-8
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/Y0/V/I/171

Fig.1 Location of Grotta Reali (Molise, Italy)

Fig.2 Grotta Reali; stratigraphic reconstruction of depositional sequence of Grotta Reali. For each strata, the stratigraphical units (US) are indicated as reference ().

Fig.3 Microcharcoal result of Grotta Reali a- the mean of the length/width ratio, b- microcharcoal concentration /(mm?g)

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