From the beginning of the RESOLUTION project to its conclusion, significant progress has been made in advancing radiocarbon dating, refining chronological frameworks, and enhancing our understanding of past climatic variations and human evolution. Fieldwork across multiple sites in Portugal and Italy led to the successful collection of new subfossil trees, establishing a growing network of researchers and gravel pit operators to facilitate future discoveries. These samples formed the basis for the development of floating tree-ring chronologies, with materials from Revine (Italy), and Furadouro (Portugal) providing multi-century sequences. Through a combination of tree-ring width analysis, accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating, and ‘Speed Dates,’ the project successfully identified and established floating chronologies from key periods, particularly around 30,000 BP (Furadouro) and 18,000 BP (Revine).Building on this, the project generated high-precision decadal radiocarbon datasets, with a focus on the most relevant time periods for comparison with cosmogenic isotope records. AMS dating of tree samples from Furadouro (Portugal) were strategically sampled in continuous 3-year blocks, allowing for a final decadal radiocarbon series with errors under 80 years, meeting the requirements for correlation with ice-core data. The project’s methodological advancements have been instrumental in applying high-precision tree-ring chronologies to key debates in human evolution. The newly established sequences are being incorporated into the upcoming IntCal calibration curve, aiming to improve radiocarbon dating accuracy for the Late Pleistocene. These refined chronological tools are already being applied to archaeological sites across Europe, providing more precise age estimates for critical prehistoric events.
Since its inception, the RESOLUTION project has led to over 80 high-impact scientific publications, including studies in Nature, Scientific Reports, and Nature Ecology & Evolution. Among its most notable discoveries is the identification of the oldest decorated ivory pendant from Stajnia Cave (Poland) and major breakthroughs in genomic research on the Mesolithic and Neolithic transitions in Europe. Dissemination efforts have ensured broad visibility, with results presented at major international conferences such as Radiocarbon, the XXI INQUA Congress, and the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, as well as through public engagement on Rai3, TG Leonardo, and Kilimangiaro. A key highlight was the publication of Misurare la Storia: La nuova linea del tempo dell’evoluzione umana, a book that translates the latest scientific findings into an accessible format for the public. Recognized as one of the top science books of the year at the Trieste Next Festival, it underscores the project's commitment to making cutting-edge research widely accessible.
