CHAPTER I The Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic I. THE PALAEOLITHIC HE ARRIVAL OF MAN seems to have been very late T in Sicily. In fact, up till now no traces of Man have been found there belonging either to the Lower or Middle Palaeo ... lithic period; that is to say, to those earliest human cultures which took up by far the greater part of the Pleistocene Age, ~t,i'j•__ . l and lasted until ha1£,way through the W(ilm glaciation, the ~ .,.:> ..---- last of the four great glaciations characterizing this geological period. Perhaps it was not until then that Man crossed the Straits of Messina and penetrated into the island. The Upper Palaeolithic stations so far identified in Sicily are very numerous, and some of them present us with great richness of material. Moreover, we must remember that large parts of the island still remain to be explored. Until a short time ago-that is to say, until 1928, when Vaufrey wrote his admirable synthesis of the Palaeolithic of Italy-one had the impression that the Upper Palaeolithic cultures only flourished along the northern coasts of the island. The known stations extended in fact all along the coast from Termini Imerese to Trapani, and on the island of Favignana, which, in the Wiirmian period, must still have been joined to Sicily. The cave...site of San Teodoro, though still on the northern coast, was isolated from the main group and much nearer to Messina. All these stations were caves in the cliffs of ancient shore lines. Only during the last few years has it been possible to identify a group of sites, belonging to this period, on the south ... eastern point of Sicily, between Syracuse and Marina di Ragusa. Some of these Syracusan sites are situated on the 'uplands and may be 23 Sicily before the Greeks as much as twenty... five miles from the sea. Some day, probably, new and more accurate field work will lead to the discovery of other stations. Some will possibly be in parts of the country from which, today at all events, the Upper Palaeolithic seems to be absent. Nevertheless, while not wishing to draw conclu ... sions from ex silentio arguments, the coastal distribution prevailing in the Sicilian Palaeolithic seems well attested up to now. Between the stations we have noted, sometimes even between those relatively close to one another, the industries often show very considerable typological differences. These differences might be mistaken for variations between· one locality and another, whereas it is more probable that they reflect a difference in date. So far not one of these stations has provided us with a strati ... fied sequence of cultures, and it is thus impossible to establish their relative chronology. One can only try to do so by making typological comparisons with the known cultures from other, more distant, regions. In all these Sicilian sites, in fact, the stratigraphical conditions are the same: the culture level, of varying thickness, overlies a deposit of clay which, though rich in remains of fauna, is devoid ofobjects of human manufacture. Vaufrey has demonstrated that these clay deposits which form the lowest stratum of the filling in Sicilian caves belong to the first part of the Wtirmian glaciation, i.e. to the period when the Mousterian culture was flourishing on all the other shores of the Mediterranean. The fauna contained in these clay deposits that have no human industry in them is very interesting. Here one finds a quaternary fauna of a warm type which, owing to the southern latitude of Sicily, was able to survive even through the Glacial period. It is a fauna with big Pachidermi in which the hippo... potamus (Hippopotamus amphibius pentlandi) was common, though the rhinoceros (Rhinoceros merki) was rare. 24 The Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic But the most characteristic eiet11ertt 111 this fauna complex is the dwarf elephant which Sicily had in common with the other Mediterranean islands (Sardinia, Crete and Cyprus), and above all with Malta, to which Sicily was certainly joined, at least until the beginning of the Pleistocene. These dwarf elephants are descended from the biggest of the known elephants, the Elephas antiquus. Amongst them there can be recognized, chiefly on the basis of progressive dwarfism, three main varieties: El. ant. mnaidrensis, El. ant. melitensis and El. ant. falconeri. This last type can hardly have been larger than a big dog. These pachidermi are associated with lions and cave hyenas (Pelis leo spelaeus and Hyaena crocuta spelaea), but the big cave bear is not found. Other species include a zebrated equid now extinct (Equus (Asinus) hydruntinus or Otranto horse), giant dormouse (Myoxus (Leithia) melitensis), wild horse (Equtis cabal; Ius), bison (Bison prisms), an early species of ox (Bos taurus primigenius), red deer (Cervus elaphus), doe (Cervus dama), wild boar (Sus scrophaferus), brown bear (Ursus arctos), wolf(Canis lupus), fox (Vulpes vulgaris), hare (Le pus europaeus), etc. It is a fauna in which specifically African elements are absent, and this argues against the original existence of a Siculo,lAfrican land,lbridge during the Quaternary period. But Man never saw this typical fauna of the Sicilian Pleisto,l cene, for by the time he came to Sicily it had already, probably for a long time, been extinct. Only one of the great Quaternary mammals, now extinct, was still surviving, the Equus (Asinus) hydruntinus. To judge from the remains of this animal found amongst the food refuse, it must have been extensively hunted by palaeolithic man. From the upper levels containing a human industry the fauna is a common one and comprises a considerably smaller number of species than that existing in the preceding period (wild horse, wild boar, red deer, Bos primigenius, fox, hare, etc.). But the enormous quantities of sea,lshells, especially of large 25 • Sicily before the Greeks limpets (Patella jerruginea) which are found in most of these Sicilian Palaeolithic sites, show that the collection of molluscs along the shore for food was of great importance to the cave ... dwellers, and that together with fishing, hunting and the picking of wild fruit it formed a basic part of the economy in this period. From a typological point of view the earliest of the palaeo... lithic stations in Sicily is probably the small rock ... shelter of Fontana N uova near Marina di Ragusa, which, despite the absence of a bone industry, seems to belong to the true Middle Aurignacian, i.e. to a relatively early phase in the Upper Palaeolithic. The so ... called back ... blades which constitute the greater number of the worked implements in the Sicilian stations are here completely absent, as are also microlithic implements. Instead, we find types characteristic of the Aurig... nacian, like the notched blades with retouched edges, burins of Tarte type, or flat burins, and beaked scrapers. Also present are hand points, obliquely truncated blades with retouches along the truncation, and a variety of burins, including the bee de flute, lateral and polyhedral types. Some blades with a prepared striking platform seem to be vaguely reminiscent of Mousterian techniques. All the other Sicilian deposits, however, fall within the 'Gravettian' complex of industries which belong to a later date in the Upper Palaeolithic. The greater part of the instruments that characterize them are blades and points with battered backs, occasionally straight (i.e. of the classic La Gravette type), but more often curved, scrapers on the ends of blades, which may be either short or long, and discoidal scrapers. Along with these appear less frequently hand points and lateral points, knives of 'shell mound' type, small points, obliquely truncated blades, burin spalls, retouching flakes, etc. Among the burins the commonest type is the polyhedral or 'Romanelli' type, but sometimes bee de flute or side burins are also found. 26 0_1lII FtUlUdl S/llirul o Cl. c::J AliiUdl QUpart <!:JVulmno A PALAEOLtTHIC LEVELS IN SIciLY MAP II Palaeolithic Levels in Sicily 1 San Teodoro 13 Crocifisso 2 San Basilio 14 Racchio 3 Sortino 15 Cala Mancina 4 Palazzolo Acreide 16 Puntali 5 Canicattini Bagni 17 Maccagnone 6 Grotta Corruggi 18 Carburanceli 7 Grotta Lazzaro 19 Grotta di Monte Gallo 8 Fontatla Nuova 20 Addaura 9 Favignana 21 San Ciro 10 Levanzo 22 Castello di Termini Imerese 11 Grotta Emiliana 23 Natale 12 Mangiapane (Scurati) 24 Di N,/ova 27 Sicily before the Greeks Among the stations along the north coast, the larger and coarser implements are often made of quartzite rather than flint. There are notable variations in the fades between one station of Gravettian type and another, and these variations suggest a slow and progressive evolution towards more definitely 'microlithic' forms. Some of these stations, as for instance the shelter of San Corrado at Palazzolo Acreide, the Natale and Di Nuovo caves at Termini Imerese, that of Cala dei Genovesi in the island of Levanzo, etc., contain an industry of normaL'sized implements amongst which the smallest ones (microliths) are rare or alto .. gether absent. On the other hand, some of the other stations, such as the caves of San Teodoro, Mangiapane and others, produce large numbers of microlithic implements, frequently geometric in shape. Often associated with this microlithic industry is a particular type of burin, known as the microburin, a type characteristic in central and western Europe of the Tardenoisian culture. In the Addaura cave, near Palermo, there were indications sug.. gesting that this prevailingly microlithic industry with micro.. burins was limited to the upper levels of the deposit, while it seems· to have been absent from the lower strata belonging to the culture. The shelter of Castello at Termini Imerese might be put at the end of this evolution.