Section II: Palaeolithic Age and Prehistoric Art
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| Room III - Lower and Middle Palaeolithic |
The human peopling of the Italian peninsula began in the lower Palaeolithic period, around 700 thousand years ago. Salento does not have, as of today, data pertaining to the early Palaeolithic phases. The oldest, most reliable documents actually concern Neanderthal man who lived in the Middle Palaeolithic period, between 120 and 40 thousand years ago.
The two central rooms contain lithic tools and the remains of fauna from deposits that have become essential to the study of southern Italy’s Middle-and Upper Palaeolithic period.
Cattie’s Neanderthalian site, in the territory of Maglie, has produced, for example, numerous lithic tools, characterized by a wide use of firestone to create beautiful points, scrapers and files, and some of the few osteological remains ascribable to this species that drastically disappeared during the Würmian Ice Age, 45/40 thousand years ago: they are two teeth belonging to a young-Adult, actually an adolescent. Mousterian tools, on local limestone, also originating from the territory of Parabita and Collepasso, from Grotta Titti in Santa Maria di Leuca and, along with numerous fauna remains, from the famous red earth of Grotta Romanelli near Castro.
The abundant deposits from this important cave, has, for the first time in Italy, provided basic documentation on the final stages of the Palaeolithic period on microlithic works, characterized by circular scrapers, tiny thick stone tools with a sharp cutting edge as well as geometric instruments, which got their name from this cave: romanellian and Pyromanellian Industries were also found later in other parts of the Salento, such as Grotta degli Angeli in Surano, Fondo Focone and Pozzo Zecca in Ugento, Grotta delle Cipolliane and Grotta delle Prazziche, the Alimini Lakes district , and throughout the rest of Italy.
The great variety and richness of the documentation from Grotta Romanelli allows the settings, the landscape, the animals as well as the adaptation and exploitation strategies by Man who lived in Salento during the withdrawal stages of the last Ice Age to be determined.
This cave is also linked to the first reported Palaeolithic cave wall Art in Italy, with the discovery in 1900 of the engravings and graffiti crafted by the Homo sapiens on its walls, among which, the famous stylized figure of a Bos primigenius pierced by small spears.
Indeed the room dedicated to art displays some casts, made in 1939 by artist Paolo Conte, ofbeautiful artistic engravings from Grotta Romanelli: the Bos, vulvar symbolic figures and intricate linear designs, with hidden figures of strongly stylized moose; various graphite stones, from the same cave and some casts of the female figurines of Balzi Rossi and the Venuses of Parabita.
Bibliography:
M. A. Orlando, L'Alca. Città di Maglie. Il Museo Civico di Paleontologia e Paletnologia "Decio de Lorentiis", Maglie, 2003.
M. A Orlando, Grotta Romanelli e il Museo Civico di Paleontologia e Paletnologia di Maglie, in P. F. Fabbri, E. Ingravallo, A. Mangia (a cura di), Grotta Romanelli nel centenario della sua scoperta (1990-2000), Atti Conv. Castro, 6-7 ottobre 2000, pp. 17-25, Galatina, 2003.
G. Cremonesi, D. de Lorentiis, E. Ingravallo, Nota preliminare sull'industria musteriana proveniente dal deposito di Cattìe (Maglie), in I Quaderni, 2, Ed. Scient Scient. Museo Maglie, pp. 5-26, Galatina, 1984.
A. Frediani, F. Martini, L'arte paleolitica di Grotta Romanelli, in P. F. Fabbri, E. Ingravallo, A. MAngia (a cura di), Grotta Romanelli nel centenario della sua scoperta (1990-2000), Atti Conv, Castro, 6-7 ottobre 2000, pp. 17-25, Galatina, 2003.
