Three Millennia of Vegetation, Land-Use, and Climate Change in SE Sicily.

This study presents the first Late Holocene marine pollen record (core ND2) from SE Sicily. It encompasses the last 3000 years and is one of the most detailed records of the south-central Mediterranean region in terms of time resolution. The combined approach of marine palynology and historical ecology, supported by independent palaeoclimate proxies, provides an integrated regional reconstruction of past vegetational dynamics in relation to rapid climatic fluctuations, historical socio-economic processes, and past land-use practices, offering new insights into the vegetation history of SE Sicily.

Context and dating of Aurignacian vulvar representations from Abri Castanet, France.

We report here on the 2007 discovery, in perfect archaeological context, of part of the engraved and ocre-stained undersurface of the collapsed rockshelter ceiling from Abri Castanet, Dordogne, France. The decorated surface of the 1.5-t roof-collapse block was in direct contact with the exposed archaeological surface onto which it fell.