Assunta Florenzanohttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-4759-6406,^1,* Anna Maria Mercurihttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-6138-4165,^1,**,*** Rita Fornaciarihttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-2161-7651,^1,**** Elena A.A. Garceahttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-6036-3362<sup>2,*****

1</sup>aLaboratorio di Palinologia e Paleobotanica, Dipartimento Scienze della Vita, Università di Modena e
²bDipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia, Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, Cassino, Italy

^*Notes on contributorsASSUNTA FLORENZANO received a BSc degree in sciences of cultural heritage, an MSc degree in sciences of restoration and conservation of archaeological heritage, and a PhD degree in earth system sciences from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy). In the same university, she teaches botany to students of natural sciences. Her research interests are quaternary palynology and paleoecology, pollen analysis from archaeological deposits with emphasis on non-pollen palynomorphs (e.g. coprophilous fungi as indicators of pastoral activities), anthropogenic impact on vegetation, archaeopalynological evidence of cultural landscapes in the Mediterranean basin.
^**CONTACT Anna Maria Mercuri annamaria.mercuri@unimore.it
^***ANNA MARIA MERCURI is a biologist and professor of botany and palynology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. She is the coordinator of the Group of Palynology and Palaeobotany of the Italian Society of Botany. Since the early 1990s, she has studied environmental transformations and archaeobotany in the Sahara. Her research interests are on long-term human impact and global change in the Mediterranean and north Africa, from the Late Glacial to recent times. She directed European and national projects on past/present vegetation and cultural landscape development, resource exploitation and integration between palaeoecology and archaeology.
^****RITA FORNACIARI received a BSc degree in biology, an MSc degree in agri-environmental sciences and biotechnologies, and a PhD degree in agri-food sciences, technologies and biotechnologies from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy). Her research interests are the morphological, morphometrical and molecular analyses of macroremains coming from arid environments, as well as statistics and bioinformatics.
^*****ELENA A.A. GARCEA is an archaeologist and professor of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Cassino and Southern Latium, Italy. Her research interests include pottery-bearing foragers, nonagricultural food producers, sedentism/mobility dynamics, and the emergence of complex societies. In 2004, she was entrusted with the direction of the Later Prehistory Research Unit within the Archaeological Mission of Sai Island of the University of Lille 3-Charles de Gaulle, France and directed the excavations at sites 8-B-10C, 8-B-76 and 8-B-81.