The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic

During the Palaeolithic (250,000-9.500 B.C.), the hilly and mountainous areas around Vicenza were inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers who lived temporarily for various lengths of time in grottoes and under overhanging rocks. They made objects out of flint and bone, as well as in perishable materials like wood, hide and plant fibres.

In the Vicenza area, the most important settlements were in the grottoes on the eastern side of the Berici Hills.

The San Bernardino grotto (Mossano) is where the oldest remains of fires in Europe (250,000-200,000 years from the present) have been found. Artefacts in flint (thin sharp Levallois points, tips and scrapers) date back to the Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic) and Neanderthal man.

The stratigraphic sequence of the Broion grotto (Longare), where tools in flint and in bone and ornamental objects (perforated deer teeth) have been found, is evidence of evolution of the environment during the last ice age (Würm glaciation, 80,000-10,000 years ago).

The grotto was lived in by Neanderthal man and modern man.

The final phase of the Upper Palaeolithic is documented by the grottoes of Paina (Mossano) and of Trene (Nanto) and by the open sites of the Fiorentini (Tonezza) and Val Lastaro (the Asiago Plateau).

The small Covoloni grotto in Broion, the shelter in San Quirico (Valdagno) and Cima Dodici (Asiago Plateau) were inhabited during the Mesolithic period (9500-6500 B.C.), the era between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic. During this age stone especially was worked to produce microliths to arm javelins and arrows used for hunting small and medium sized mammals.