The first step of the DEN.P.H. project was to recover and organize information from the poorly-documented Neolithic skeletal collections from Liguria, excavated at the beginning of the 1800s. The Recipient travelled from Bordeaux to different Museums and institutions in Italy to collected data on dental remains creating a dental database for the Ligurian Neolithic burials and scattered human remains, and for comparative Neolithic, Mesolithic and Palaeolithic samples. For each tooth of each subject the Recipient observed the presence/absence of dento-alveolar pathological conditions, metric and morphological characteristics.
Contextually with the data collection on dental traits, the Recipient collected data on the biological profile, chronological distribution, demographic composition, isotopic parameters and funerary behaviour of the Ligurian skeletal series performed by the BUR.P.P.H. project (Burial practices at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition: the changing role of pathology, violence, and “exceptional events”, financed by IdEx, P.I. Dr. Vitale Stefano Sparacello). With a Dental Anthropological perspective, the DEN.P.H. project gained new insights on lifestyles and adaptative strategies of Neolithic people, both in Liguria (Italy) and comparative samples.
The results of the project have contributed to our understanding of stress during growth and life history adaptations in the Neolithic. Using the biochemical analysis of incremental structures of growth in the dentine, it was possible to determine that weaning patterns were delayed in the Neolithic compared to the Metal Ages in Liguria. This may be due to specific adaptive strategies by mothers to maximize immune protection in a highly infectious environment. The disease that appear to have plagued the Neolithic people in Liguria is tuberculosis, which seems to have the highest prevalence ever recorded in a Neolithic sample, also thanks to the discovery of several skeletal lesions made by the Recipient. Indeed, the timing of weaning inferred by isotopic analysis is consistent with the timing of growth disturbances in two other studies conducted by the Recipient, one based on enamel defects (linear hypoplasia), and one based on skeletal development. Overall, results suggest that the end of milk supplementation coincided with developmental stress, which may signal a sudden investment in immune defence by the child at a cost to growth. Therefore, three studies using different methodologies provide a coherent scenario of early development among Neolithic people, significantly improving our understanding of environmental pressures and adaptive strategies at the beginning of farming.
