Interest for the advancement of the knowledge

Molecular archaeology represents a groundbreaking avenue in the exploration of past technologies, aiming to deduce behaviours and cultural strategies. This innovative field demands a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating STEM disciplines to analyse residues clinging to Palaeolithic stone tools that were employed in the mechanical processing of starchy plants into food. SMart4BioArCH aims to formulate a strategy facilitating the study of challenging to recognize and characterise biogenic residues in a safe, reliable, and reproducible manner. The collaborative expertise of the two teams converges to develop innovative materials designed to remove starch grains from archaeological stone tools without any alteration. This process ensures the availability of these residues for subsequent application of analytical techniques, such as microscopy, spectroscopy, and spectrometry. The chemo-profiling of starch grains, a novel approach introduced by the UNIVE Team, is groundbreaking in its application to Palaeolithic residues. This method promises to characterise these residues and, when feasible, identify the specific plants involved. Consequently, the investigation of starches related to tool use unveils their substantial potential as bio-archives. This has the capacity to significantly enrich our understanding of how hominins utilised available resources in different territories, providing documentation on the emergence of dietary carbohydrates as staple food dating back to 60.000 to 25.000 years ago. Simultaneously, UNIFI Team will develop innovative smart materials such as elastic gels and large interface systems, in combination with suitable solvents, to dislodge starches adhering to archaeological stone tools and release them in a safe manner. This collaborative effort aims to integrate analytical insights with material innovation for a comprehensive and effective approach.

To achieve this goal, SMart4BioArCH pipeline will be structured in four interconnected work packages (WPs) as reported in Figure 1”

Figure 1. SMarT4BioArCH WPs and the relationship between them

In detail, the study will be achieved through the creation of proxies for the simulation of the archaeological finds including weathering simulation (WP1) and simultaneously by means of the synthesis of innovative high-tech smart materials – large interface systems as macro-porous sponges and/or peelable elastic gels in combination with suitable solvents – able to work as reversible adsorbents for entrapping and releasing biogenic residues from the stone tools surface, chiefly without altering them (WP2). The new smart materials will then be tested on the proxies generated in WP1 to evaluate their performance and the most suitable operative conditions. The best high-tech materials and the newly developed procedure will be finally applied for the extraction of still preserved biogenic residues from the ancient stone tools’ crevices and cracks affecting the used surfaces (WP3). All the three above-mentioned WPs will be supported by a suitable and accurate physico-chemical characterisation. The results obtained from WP3 will then be compared with those obtained for similar analysis applied to a tailored reference collection of modern plants selected among those available during MIS 3 (Marine Isotope Stage, 60-25.000 years ago) in the study area. Dissemination of the project’s results and the project management (WP4) will allow the successful completion of the planned activities.

The scientific data generated through this process aids in reconstructing the often obscured and largely unknown dietary strategies of ancient humans.

The trans-disciplinarity behind SMart4BioArCH is bringing together diverse competencies willing to traverse the chasm between STEM and Humanities, and building heuristics to enhance curation practices both for archaeologists and for museums conservative operations, allowing innovative science-based archaeological investigation, specifically involving molecular archaeology.