Analisi paleogenetica dei cacciatori-raccoglitori della Sicilia: nuovi dati sul primo popolamento dell’isola

The first undisputed colonization of the island has been linked to Late or Final Epigravettian groups after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), as evidenced by the fossil record. Two significant sites to investigate this issue are the Grotta di San Teodoro (Acquedolci, Messina) and the Grotta d’Oriente (Favignana island). The Grotta di San Teodoro has yielded the oldest and largest human skeletal sample yet found in Sicily. Inside the cave, during field excavations carried out in the 1937-1947 years, seven human adults have been discovered (ST1-ST7). In the Grotta d’Oriente four prehistoric burials assigned to Late Upper Paleolithic (Oriente A and C) and Mesolithic (Oriente B and X) were unearthed during two campaign of ex-cavations (1972 and 2005). Thanks to the recent development of new methods for the analysis of ancient DNA (aDNA) coupled with Next Generation Sequencing technologies (NGS), it is nowadays possible to go deep inside the migration movements of human past populations. In order to better understand the peopling dynamics of Sicily during the Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic, we analyzed and compared three complete mitochondrial genome sequences of ST2, Oriente C and Oriente B specimens. ST2 is an almost complete cranium attributed to a male, housed at the “G.G. Gemmellaro” Geo-logical Museum of the University of Palermo. The ST2 individual was buried near the ST1 skeleton, which was radiocarbon dated to 15,232-14,126 cal. BP. Oriente C individual was found during excavations of 2005. Two radiocarbon dates on char-coals are consistent with typical Late Epigravettian stone assemblages and refer Oriente C, a female only represented by the upper half of the skeleton, to a period spanning about 14,200-13,800 cal. BP. The Mesolithic Oriente B was unearthed in 1972. This individual, an almost complete skeleton attributed to an adult female, has been directly dated to 10,683-10,544 cal. BP. Paleogenetic analysis reveals a significant homogeneity in Sicilian Paleo-Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, and our data suggest a strong genetic relationship with Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers from Southern Italy, supporting the hypothesis that the first humans to arrive in Sicily could have originated from Epigravettian groups that migrated from the Italian pen-insula soon after the LGM.