Humans arose in sub-Saharan Africa 8-5 million years ago, and by 2.7 mya had developed the Oldowan chopper-flake stone tool industry. Around that time Homo habilis, a more advanced human, arose also in Africa and groups of them soon spread to Eurasia. The next development, Homo erectus, may have evolved outside of Africa but recolonized that continent as well as Eurasia. A major technical advance occurred c.1.6 mya with the development and diffusion of the Acheulian stone tool industry, typified by handaxes.
Palaeolithic (850 kya)
West Asia is the only fully terrestrial (land) route that animals could have used to cross from Africa to Eurasia. However, the spread of the Acheulian culture in Italy and the presence of flakes and pebble tools in sites such as Mount Poggiolo (850 kya) in Lazio and Isernia la Pineta (730 kya) in Molise, suggest that early humans may have crossed to Italy via Sicily.
In 1994 while digging for the construction of a highway near the town of Ceprano (Lazio), fragments of a human cranium were uncovered (450 kya). Although its exact relationship has yet to be determined it appears to be quite close to Homo erectus and possibly a link to Homo heidelbergensis.
Notarchirico is one of a group of sites near Venosa in Southern Italy that have provided a record of Early Palaeolithic activity in Europe and some of the earliest European evidence for Acheulian bifaces. Also recovered from Notarchirico is archaeological evidence pointing to the butchering of large mammals (elephants, large bovids), and a human femoral shaft (500 kya) comparable to those of Homo erectus.
In Lazio the sites at Fontana Ranuccio (450 kya), La Polledrara di Cecanibbio (360 kya) and Castel di Guido (300 kya) have yielded handaxes made out of elephant long bone (a practice not widely seen elsewhere) and others made out of stone (bifaces). Also recovered from Ranuccio were two human teeth and from Guido a temporal bone both possibly of Homo erectus, dated to the respective levels.
In 1993 a fossilised complete skeleton of an archaic human (130 kya), encased in stalagmite was found in the Lamalunga Cave in Altamura (Apulia). It has been left in situ and is probably an early Neanderthal. Other probable Neanderthals are the two fossilised human skulls (120 kya) found at Saccopastore near the Anio (=Aniene) River in Lazio. Grotta Guattari, a cave in Mount Circeo (Lazio), had a Neanderthal skull and three lower jaws in Mousterian deposits (52 kya).
The Fumane Cave is a cave-site in the Venetian Prealps in Veneto. Excavation unearthed a Mousterian and Aurignacian sequence, the later dating from 37-32 kya, and containing paintings on stones.
The Uluzzian industry (36-32 kya) in Central and Southern Italy at all its major sites, e.g. the Cavallo Cave (33 kya) in Apulia, it is followed by an Aurignacian level, suggesting that it precedes this culture, rather than being its contemporary.
Grimaldi is a cave and rockshelter in Liguria close to the French border, which has produced Middle and Upper Palaeolithic material, most notably Aurignacian (>26 kya) and Gravettian (>22 kya) assemblages. The caves have also revealed seventeen Homo sapiens burials (25 kya), including grave goods. A series of small ‘Venus’ figurines of uncertain date were also found.
Arene Candide, a large cave side on the Ligurian coast, revealed a stratigraphy stretching from the Upper Palaeolithic (Gravettian dated to 23 kya), through the Early Neolithic (Impressed Ware dated to 5200-5000 BC), Middle Neolithic (Square Mouth Pottery) and Late Neolithic (Lagozza), poor levels of Bronze and Iron ages, to Roman. At least twenty human burials were present by the end of the Pleistocene.
Mesolithic (10 kya)
Grotta dell’Uzzo is a cave near the northwestern tip of Sicily, with a sequence of Mesolithic and Early Neolithic deposits. In the Mesolithic layers (10 kya) six inhumation burials were discovered, and the Neolithic layers (8.5 kya) revealed Cardium Impressed Ware, bones of domestic sheep, goat and pig, and traces of wheat and barley (probably around 8 kya).
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