New sites

Recent news from the distant past

In June 2009 at Campo di Pile, in the industrial area west of L’Aquila, the remains of a Mammoth of the same species as the one in the middle of the room (Mammuthus meridionalis) were discovered: two tusks and four molars of a female about 30 years old and part of a tusk of another individual.

In the same area, two teeth of a large deer, an equid metatarsal, a rhinoceros tibia and a bison horn were found. The area, frequented by these animals a million years ago, was close to a riverbed.

In Pagliare di Sassa, in Via San Pietro, at the end of the 1990s, during work to quarry sand, the fossil remains of several animals dating back to around 700,000 years ago (beginning of the Middle Pleistocene) were found:

• Ancient elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus)
• Steppe Mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii),
• Rhinoceros (Stephanorhinus hundsheimensis)
• Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus antiquus)
• Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
• Large deer (Megaloceros savini and Praemegaceros verticornis)
• Hare (Lepus sp.)
• Wild boar (Sus scrofa)
• Small rodents: the voles Mimomys savini and Microtus gregaloides birds including the Common duck (Anas penelops)

The environment in which they were found corresponds to a fluvial conoid, i.e. a mass of loose sediments carried by a river and deposited in the valley below in a cone-like shape.

In the same place, a flint splinter and a fragment of worked bone were found, evidence of the oldest human presence in Abruzzo.

Nello stesso luogo sono state ritrovate una scheggia di selce e un frammento d’osso lavorati, testimoni della più antica presenza umana in Abruzzo.

Illustrazione tratta dal volume Il Mammut, a cura di Maria Adelaide Rossi, Carsa Edizioni, Pescara 2022