The panoramic radiograph archive of the human craniological collection housed at the Human Anatomy Museum in Turin.

The craniological collection at the Human Anatomy Museum of the University of Turin consists of 1090 skulls and 64 postcranial skeletons prepared mostly during the second half of the nineteenth century. The collection presents individuals of both sexes and of different age groups and includes 712 skulls of known age and sex and 378 of which only the sex is known. Most individuals are associated with a documentation that includes sex, age-at-death, dates of birth and a death certificate. The collection comes from several regions of Italy, between 1880 and 1915, received by the former Anatomical Institute of the University of Turin from city's prisons and hospitals. The whole craniological collection of known age was subjected to panoramic radiographs. The craniological collection combined with the panoramic digital X-ray images represents an important contribution in anthropology and forensic odontology, as there is now no craniological collection available in the world available from a radiological perspective, for investigating dental age assessment and sex dimorphism using radiographs as well as other research and teaching potentials.

Animal resources and subsistence strategies.

Several faunal assemblages excavated in deposits of different antiquity (from Lower Paleolithic to Bronze Age), located in Northern, Central and Southern Italy, were studied from the archeozoological and taphonomic point of view. Data obtained by different Authors allow reconstruction of subsistence strategies adopted by prehistoric humans in these areas and through time, in particular as far as the exploitation of animal resources is concerned. The following assemblages were considered: Isernia La Pineta (Molise; Lower Paleolithic), Grotta Breuil (Latium; Middle Paleolithic), Grotta della Ghiacciaia (Verona; Middle Paleolithic), Riparo di Fumane and Riparo Tagliente (Verona; Middle and Upper Paleolithic), Riparo Mochi (Liguria; Upper Paleolithic), Grotta della Continenza (L'Aquila; Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic), Grotta dell'Edera (Trieste; Mesolithic and Neolithic), Grotta della Cala at Marina di Camerota (Salerno; Eneolithic), Contraguda (Sassari; Neolithic), Castellaro Lagusello (Mantova; Bronze Age). Exploitation of the vegetal resources has been analyzed in the Neolithic sites of Colle Santo Stefano (Fucino), Settefonti (L'Aquila) and Catignano (Pescara).

Typological and technological study of prehistoric implements in animal hard tissues.

Several series of prehistoric implements in animal hard tissues, either from ancient and recent excavations, were studied by the typological and technological points of views. Their morpho-typological description was in many cases associated to microscopic study of surface modifications, often allowing identification of traces related to manufacture. This technological information in some cases could be integrated by the observations of use-wear, thus providing functional indications. Implements came from sites of different antiquity and different geographic areas (from Liguria to Calabria). Implements considered by the research program included tools, pendants and other ornamental objects, as well as unfinished implements and manufacture left-overs often identified during revision of faunal remains. Middle Paleolithic bone fragments bearing traces of non-alimentary anthropic actions were limited to the so-called "retouchers". However, during Upper Paleolithic, implements in animal hard tissues were relatively frequent in most Italian sites, even if those industries were not so rich, elaborated and typologically differentiated as in other European areas.