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2001 - 2021: Vent’anni di ricerche sulle “Ciampate del diavolo”. Dalla leggenda alla realtà scientifica
Abstract and Figures
This book gives a detailed report of twenty years of scientific research, investigations and studies on the site with Middle Pleistocene fossil footprints, known as “Devil's Trails" paleontological site, which is located on the north-eastern slopes of the Roccamonfina volcano, in the locality of Foresta (municipality of Tora e Piccilli, Central-Southern Italy). The fossilised human and animal footprints, radiometrically dated to 349±3 ka years ago, are described here in detail and contextualised in the worldwide ichnological panorama.
In addition to the images, a dimensional dataset is also provided of all the human footprints detected and studied and of the world’s oldest prehistoric pathway so far, from which most of the footprints branch out coordinating themselves into trackways.
The report is enriched with some methodological observations that provide a state of the art of human ichnological research.
Finally, historical-archaeological and anthropological-cultural evidence is also considered and discussed so providing a complete and detailed picture of one of the oldest and most important human ichnosites in the world and its territorial surroundings.
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The footprints left by the Palaeolithic hominins at the ca. 350 ka old Foresta "Devil's Trails" ichnosite (Tora-Piccilli, central Italy) are rather variable, even in a single trackway. The peculiar characteristics of the deposit and the acclivity of the soft, slipping slope the hominins were walking on, which forced trackmakers to change pace and walking direction, likely account for this variability. As a result, determining whether the footprints were left by distinct trackmakers, as it would be logical to hypothesize based on the main settings of the trackways, or by a single individual who descended the slope more than once in a short time span, is difficult. To try to answer the question, we have analysed the Foresta/"Devil's Trails" footprint sample by means of various statistical methods with the double aim of quantitatively defining the minimum number of hominin trackmakers who walked on the ignimbrite deposit's slope and scrutinizing to what extent the acclivity of the substrate and the position of each footprint on the slope may affect their dimensions and proportions. The obtained results suggest that four trackmakers (A, B, C, and E) walked on the ignimbrite slope of the deposit. Individuals A, B, and C most likely had similar foot sizes, whereas individual E had larger one. Conversely, more solid data are needed to support the hypothesis that a fifth individual, smaller in size, left the footprints of short sequence D. Furthermore, the results underline how much the coarse, soft, and slippery substrate, along with the slope acclivity, influenced the direction of walking and its changing, the velocity, the length of the stride, the pace stability, and the way in which the foot rests on the substrate slope and, in turn, the shape and size of the footprints. The synergetic action of these factors influenced the footprint proportions, which differ in dimensions even within the same trackway.
Here we report about a fossil handprint located in the "Ciampate del diavolo" palaeontological site (Tora e Piccilli, central-southern Italy). Radiometrically dated at ~350 ka, it is the only fossilized Middle-Pleistocene human handprint up to know known in the world and the oldest so far. This handprint, called TP_M1, cannot be compared with anything similar at present, either in hypogeal or subaerial environments and is completely unrelated to any cultural purpose. Since it can only be analyzed from a dynamic and morphostructural point of view, it can be considered a kind of unique photographic snapshot of a common moment in the everyday life of a middle-Pleistocene hominin. In this sense, it represents, with the dimensional dataset here provided, an equally unique and valuable tool for the study of similar contexts and evidence.
This report provides a complete description of the general “Ciampate del diavolo” palaeontological site (Tora e Piccilli, Central-Southern Italy) and each of the human ichnites there found so far. This description is integrated and completed with the tables, graphs, and pictures given in Supplements 1, 2, and 3 of this volume [Panarello et al., 2022a;b;c]. We think that this huge amount of both numeric and visual data will be very useful for any other human palaeoichnological study. Pictures and data show great variability in footprint structures due to the choices in the gait-patterns step-by-step imposed to the trackmakers by the geomorphological asperities that they had to face during their prehistoric walking along an irregularly plastic and unsafe substrate. The same complex morpho-structural characteristics of the footprints highlight the uniqueness of the ichnological context of the “Ciampate del diavolo” geosite, which is the only in the world, so far, to be located on an extremely steep volcanic deposit.
The power of footprints to record and pass on the complexity of movements and body structure of living beings is well known. Techniques for two- and three-dimensional survey, analysis, and interpretation of ichnological data are becoming increasingly numerous and complex, but they have not yet lost their dependence on many different conventions and their various degree of interpretation. Particularly interesting for palaeoanthropologists are hominin fossil footprints, which are extremely rare but have the power to give precious knowledge about our ancient relatives, their body structure, their behaviour, the environment in which they lived. In this paper, we review the main analysis techniques known to date and we show the conventions applied to the study of the “Ciampate del diavolo” in the light of the particular characteristics of the palaeontological site preserving them.
We provide a list of contribution by Italian scientists to tetrapod ichnology with papers on both material from Italy and abroad. Foreign author's contributions on tetrapod ichnology based on material from Italy are also considered. The list updates the previous one published by D'Orazi Porchetti et al. (2008) and, as a result, includes works from 1869 up to now. Following the previous reference list, papers of non-Italian researchers on foreign material are reported when the material was found on Italian territory at the time of publication.
This work presents the current knowledge on the Quaternary vertebrate ichnological record (excluding the hominid data) of peninsular and insular Italy. In particular, the data concerning different Pleistocene localities of Sardinia (e.g. Capo Mannu and Funtana Morimenta) and the Middle Pleistocene Foresta "Devil's Trails" ichnosite of Roccamonfina Volcano (Campania) are here discussed. In the Pleistocene record of Sardinia four ichnotaxa are known: Bifidipes aff. B. aeolis as regard the Early Pleistocene, and Proboscipeda panfamilia McNeil, Hills, Tolman, and Kooyman, 2007, Bifidipes isp. and Canipeda isp. as concerning the Middle-Late Pleistocene record. Four ichnotaxa are identified also in the Middle Pleistocene ichnosite of Foresta "Devil's Trails": Proboscipeda panfamilia, McNeil, Hills, Tolman, and Kooyman, 2007, Ursichnus isp., Hippipeda isp., and the ichnogenus Pecoripeda (? ichnosubgenus Cervipeda). The systematics of the mammal ichnofossils and the putative trackmakers are discussed and, furthermore, the ages, the stratigraphic and geological data are briefly treated to suggest the relative palaeoenvironmental contexts.
This report aims to give notice of and provide a more detailed dataset and detailed remarks on what can be considered a one-of-a-kind hominin fossil walking pattern: Trackway B of the Foresta ichnological site (Tora e Piccilli, Caserta, Central Italy). Although the site is known since 2003, only recently has the study been performed by means of the newest photogrammetric and experimental techniques of collection, analysis and interpretation of ichnological data. The results obtained enable us to depict an astonishing movie printed in rock, describing some body features and common moments of the everyday movements of a hominin who lived about 350 ka. In particular, some up-to-now absolutely unique fossil prints of body parts of a Pleistocene hominin (calf, ankle, and gluteus), which have simply been mentioned in the ichnological fossil record, are here quantitatively described for the first time. The data coming from this research will provide scientists with new valuable elements thus far undetected anywhere else in the world.