Echoes of Italy's Ice-Age Foragers

The Epigravettian of Italy unfolded in the dramatic aftermath of the Last Glacial Maximum, as ice and tundra retreated and humans recolonized formerly inhospitable landscapes. Archaeological data indicates that Epigravettian traditions — a suite of blade and backed‑blade lithics, personal ornaments, and burial practices — were established across peninsular Italy. Key cave sites in our DNA sampling are Grotta Continenza (Abruzzo, L'Aquila), Arene Candide (Liguria, Savona) and Grotte di Pradis (Friuli‑Venezia Giulia, Pordenone). These locations show repeated occupation layers, hearths, and faunal assemblages that speak to seasonal mobility and local resource tracking.

Material culture and stratigraphic sequences place this cultural horizon between the terminal Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic, roughly 11,139–7,062 BCE in the sampled individuals. Limited evidence suggests regional variation in toolkit and subsistence strategies as groups adapted to coastal, karstic and upland environments. Archaeological interpretations emphasize continuity with broader Epigravettian networks across southern Europe, but the full picture of population movements and cultural exchange remains incomplete. Genetic data from a small set of individuals (see Genetics) provides new, but preliminary, anchors for these archaeological patterns.

Five sequenced individuals attributed to Italy_Epigravettian provide a rare genetic window into these post‑glacial foragers, but the sample count is low and conclusions must be tentative. All five carry mitochondrial haplogroup U — a lineage commonly observed among Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europeans — suggesting maternal continuity with wider European hunter‑gatherer populations. On the paternal side, three individuals carry haplogroup I and one carries haplogroup P. Both I and P are recognized in ancient northern and western Eurasian contexts, and their presence here aligns with patterns of hunter‑gatherer diversity in Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Europe.

Genetic affinities tentatively place these Italian Epigravettians within the broader cluster of European hunter‑gatherers that includes the so‑called Western Hunter‑Gatherer signal, though fine‑scale relationships (for example links to the Villabruna cluster) cannot be resolved confidently with only five samples. Archaeogenetic data indicate population structure and local continuity in parts of Italy, combined with likely gene flow along coastal and alpine corridors. Importantly, the small sample size (<10) means observed haplogroup frequencies may not represent the full genetic landscape of Epigravettian Italy. Future sampling could reveal additional lineages and refine models of post‑glacial demographic change.