When it comes to writing about the history of the “Provincia of Belluno” we now know that it is traced back to the Paleolitics, when humans (at the time mostly hunters and farmers) started populating this mountainous area due to its natural resources. In fact it is only in the last few decades that researchers started to dig more into the prehistoric times of this territory, because until then it was believed that the first traces of history in our province were related to the so-called Iron age. 

In the past there was no need to dig deep down into the terrain, gas and electricity weren’t needed so no one thought that deep down there could have been prehistoric artifacts. Only recently, when projects of electrification and methanization came to be they realized that there was a completely undiscovered world under us.

When the first artifacts were discovered many people started to team up to preserve them and further dig in search for others.

For these discoveries, we have to thank many local associations like the “friends of the museum of Belluno” among the “friends of Selva di Cadore” coordinated by the Region’s surveillance and its department of archeological studies.Thanks to them it is now safe to say that our territory was exploited already throughout the entire paleolithic age. 

Many traces were found in the Cansiglio area, the Mel area and Mount Avena.

Historians and archeologists believe that findings in high mountains like Mount Avena are related to the glaciers that changed and shaped our actual territories and unfortunately wiped away many other artifacts.

Among the discovered artifacts there are custom modified rocks, especially flint stones, reportedly used to hunt animals and to cut their meat. A further proof of the reason why they came in this territory: the abundance of wild animals to hunt.

Nowadays, these findings are accessible to visit in many local museums like the archeological museums of Mel, Selva di cadore and Belluno among other archeological sites.One of the most groundbreaking discoveries though was made in Val Cismon where once again thanks to some digging, they found a human skeleton. Experts identified him as a male hunter whose age at the time of death was approximately 26 years old.

Another important site of findings is located in Cansiglio and it is called in dialect “Bus de la Lum” allowing archeologists to trace the hunters movement in the Province. Without any doubt, one if not the most important finding related to this time period is the “Man of Mondeval”, who is going to be the subject of my next week’s article.