mAARiTIME: Marine Amino Acid Racemisation Investigation of The Mediterranean

Because of its extended temporal span, AAR geochronology has the potential to answer specific but vital questions of human evolution. This project (mAARiTIME) aims to use AAR dating to shed light on two main unresolved problems: when did early humans become “modern”, and is “modern” behaviour isolated to our own species? Behavioural modernity has fortuitously left traces in the archaeological record as molluscan remains, one of the best substrates for AAR dating. Molluscs were exploited as a food resource and shells were used as personal ornaments, providing some of the earliest evidence of symbolic thinking displayed by humans. The Mediterranean archaeological record is important to our understanding of the development of behavioural modernity. Controversially, in this area the exploitation of marine resources has recently been associated with both Neanderthals (Stringer et al., 2008; Zilhao et al., 2010) and Homo sapiens. By applying a closed-system method of AAR dating, mAARiTIME is building stratigraphical frameworks, which combined with new independent geochronology aims to provide a reliable dating control for the Mediterranean. This study presents the closed system tests for three key marine genera and compares the AAR data from fossil shells with independent age information for the pilot chronological frameworks in southern Europe and northern Africa.