THE PALAEOLITHIC.

The exposition on the second floor goes over the man history throughout the Palaeolithic period. It is a very long time that started 3 million years ago, when stone tools were used, and it ended 10 thousand years ago, once agriculture was introduced. This period is divided in 3 different eras:

• The Lower Palaeolithic, marked out by the evolution of the Australopithecus Man;
• The Middle Palaeolithic characterized by the Homo Neanderthalensis;
• And the Upper Palaeolithic with the Homo Sapiens. This evolution can be observed inside a specific room with profiles of Palaeolithic man, during the three developing phases. In the first part of the exhibition various tools made by man throughout these three periods are described:
• Stone objects with a sharp edge;
• Stone splinters with sharp border;
• Choppers;
• Two-faced and “little tools” used not only to cut, but also to carve and to scratch.

A description of some places belonging to the territory of Altamura follows: the Horse cave and the Holy Cross cave among them, in which evidences of these man made tools during the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic were found. In the final part of the showroom the notorious Cave of Lamalunga is described, the place in which a human skeleton was discovered. It is a Neanderthal Man that allowed a three-dimensional reconstruction, full-scale, of how a typical man must be. The route ends up with a description of the Homo Sapiens and a narration of his activities during the Upper Palaeolithic.