Bronze Age wooden-handled chisel found in cave –

Earlier this year, an excavation at the Pertosa-Oleta cave in the southern Italian province of Salerno unearthed thousands of artifacts, including an extremely rare Bronze Age chisel with its wooden handle still intact.

The Pertosa-Auletta Caves are the only cave system in Italy with a navigable river, and visitors can take guided boat rides to underground waterfalls and the Great Hall, a massive 80-foot-high chamber. There is evidence of human occupation of the cave dating back 8,000 years. The presence of the river allowed the preservation of organic material in the cave, and previous excavations unearthed a prehistoric pile house from the second millennium BC, a unique example in the European archaeological record of a pile house built in an underground environment.

Many of the artifacts found in recent battles had ritual uses. Archaeologists have discovered coins, ornaments, ointment containers, incense burners, sculptural figures and burned plant remains in underground river beds as deposits of important cult structures built during the Hellenistic era (4th to 1st century BC). Notable objects found at the Holy Land include a chunk of precious amber and a clay sculpture of a female head. They also discovered an extension of the 3,500-year-old stilt home.

The January-February digs were part of a new three-year excavation campaign, scheduled to resume next month. Thanks to the job training program, high school students will participate in fieldwork for the first time, which will provide them with a very special opportunity to learn firsthand about the cave archaeological process.