At the home of Neanderthals and Sapiens
It is difficult to find an open-air Natural History Museum easier to discover than the one that offers this wonderful excursion.
In Marina di Camerota, in the centre of the town, it is possible to see in a few meters a prehistoric coastal cave that was the shelter of Neanderthal Man, another inhabited by Homo Sapiens and another one with overlapping human traces of the final Epigravettian, the Mesolithic and the Neolithic.
Many tourists flock to the beaches located a few steps from these wonders every year, and very often they leave without even looking at the caves, and without knowing what they have missed.
Otherwise, travellers in love with the beauty can closely observe and discover that wonder.
Magnificent double-sided instruments in siliceous stone date back to the lower Palaeolithic.
In the Middle Palaeolithic, a glaciation forced man to take refuge in caves, therefore the settlements increased. This period, known as Mousterian, sees the presence of Neanderthal man: the Riparo del Poggio is the house where he lived.
The Upper Palaeolithic is the time of the Homo Sapiens. Also in this case, it is possible to visit his home: it is the Grotta della Cala, studied in recent years by prestigious universities, such as the University of Siena.
It is also extraordinary that it is very close to the Riparo del Poggio.
Studies and findings continue, and so far they have shown that here it is possible to read in regular stratigraphic succession the Aurignacian, Gravettian and Epigravettian periods.
This stratigraphic series extends and completes in the nearby Grotta della Serratura, where Mesolithic and Neolithic layers overlap at the levels of the final Epigravettian.
The discovery of the Neolithic, which took place in recent years, has great interest since so far there was no evidence of this period in the area.
The artefacts begin to include, in addition to other stone tools, ceramics; it is the symptom of an extraordinary anthropological evolution: man is no longer just a hunter, but has become a farmer and breeder.
The fragments of pottery are very numerous and linked to activities related to fishing.
Even today, pottery and fishing are among the main activities of Camerota and Marina di Camerota.
It is difficult to say if there is another place that allows you to observe habitats that cover the entire time span of Prehistory in a few hundred meters, in front of wonderful beaches with a wonderful sea that is a Marine Protected Area, in the centre of a delightful seaside village where it is possible to buy in the souvenir shops ceramic objects made by master potters with techniques handed down from generation to generation for about 6000 years.
Maybe there isn't another one, but for sure there is Marina di Camerota … and for sure, a cultural walk like this is a must-see!
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