While the adults make charcoal handprints on the ceiling, the youngsters dig clay from the floor and smear it on a stalagmite, tracing their fingers in the soft sediment. Finally, they arrive at an opening, a section of the cave that archaeologists from a future geological epoch will call ‘Sala dei Misteri’ (the ‘Chamber of Mysteries’). Further into the cave, they dodge stalagmites and large blocks, navigate a steep slope, and cross a small underground pond, leaving deep footprints in the mud. But he decides to press on, and the family follows, with each member pausing in the same spot before continuing. He then pauses, likely evaluating whether the next section is too difficult for the littlest in the group.
After a few metres, the ceiling reaches its lowest point and the male adult stops. Their knees make imprints on the clay floor. The corridor soon turns to a tunnel as the ground slopes upward, leaving less than 80 cm of space to crawl through. The youngest, the toddler, is at the rear. Walking in single file, with only flickering firelight to guide them, they hug the walls as they traverse the uneven ground. At around 150 metres inside, the family reaches a long, low corridor. Canine paw prints nearby suggest they may be accompanied by pets.Ĭarrying pine torches, they enter the base of the mountain. There are traces of two adults, a male and female, with three children: a three-year-old toddler, a six-year-old child, and an adolescent no older than 11. The group is barefoot and the path into the cave is marked by footprints in the soft earth and mud. Bundled together, covered with resin and set alight, these branches will become simple torches to illuminate the cave’s darkened galleries. Ahead, the cave’s entrance is surrounded by a kaleidoscope of wildflowers: prickly pink thistles, red-brown mugworts, and purple cornflowers.īut before entering, this hunter-gatherer family stops to collect the small, thin branches of a pine tree. They’re wandering across a steppe covered in short, dry grasses and pine trees. In the daylight, a family begins making its way toward a cave at the foot of a mountain near the Ligurian Sea, in northern Italy. The sun rises on the Palaeolithic, 14,000 years ago, and the glacial ice that once blanketed Europe continues its slow retreat.
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