Prehistoric
sites on the coast between Scario and Camerota
Palaeolithic:
artefacts in the area of Camerota
Palaeolithic in the area of Camerota
Cala Bianca: biface from the archate
series
Prehistoric sites of the Camerota coast are an important testimony
both for the density of built-up area and for the wide chronological
arc they cover. In fact you can fix a temporal succession that,
except for a few interruptions, starts from 500,000 years ago
up to the thresholds of history.
Above all, numerous are the finds of the Palaeolithic period when
man, still in the cultural phases of hunting and harvesting, met
a favourable habitat in the Cilento because of its climate, an
environment that was rich in game and natural shelters, such as
refuges and caves. The most ancient traces of human presence are
near Marina di Camerota, in the bay of Cala Bianca, where stoned
tools whose estimated age is about half a million years. The finds
of Cala d'Arconte and Capo Grosso are more recent, but always
related to the lower Palaeolithic, and include splendid bifacial
siliceous stone tools.
There was a wider diffusion of establishments
during the middle Palaeolithic, in an interval of time ranging
from 100,000 and 25,000 years ago, when the pressing of a glacial
period induced man to seek shelter in caves. Therefore, many natural
caves of the Camerota coast hold remains of human activities of
the Mousterian period. These are tools made with splinters of
stone, bones of hunted animals and layers of residual ash and
charcoals of ancient hearths as well.
The protagonist of Mousterian settlements was the man of Neanderthal,
of which we possess an important fossil remain discovered in the
Riparo del Poggio in the resort of Lentiscelle. The beginning
of the Upper Palaeolithic (between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago)
and of the Homo Sapiens is well-documented in the Grotta della
Scala, from where finds of the Aurignacian (30,000 years), of
the Gravettian (27,000 years) come in a regular stratigraphical
succession.
This stratigraphical series finds its extension and completion
in the adjoining Grotta della Serratura, where at the final Epigravettian
level, Mesolithic (8-9,000 years) and Neolithic (about 6,000 years
ago) layers are superimposed. The discovery of Neolithic, occurred
during these last years, is very important because there was no
evidence of this period in this area until now. Stone tools and
ceramics appear among hand-made products; man went beyond his
cultural phases of hunting, becoming a farmer and a breeder.
The newest period of cilentanean prehistory is represented by
layers of the Bronze Age (about 3,700 years), present in many
sites, but above all in the Grotta del Noglio. Ceramic fragments
make up most of the finds and support certain traces of activities
connected with fishing.