Museum for the school: prehistoric topics

^{Click here for booking}

Time machine: meet the prehistoric man

✶ Why did human beings live in grottoes? ✶ How hard was it to catch an elephant? ✶ How did humans capture fire? ✶ Why did they manufacture stone arms? ✶ How did they make jars? ✶ How did they mill wheat?
This activity, for 4-7 years old children, aims at creating a joyful approach to the museum structures; educationally intervening in the stages of pre-attainment of the concept of time and space, by means of direct and personal comparison. Together with a “timenaut” children travel through an imaginary journey in which they meet “prehistoric men and women”. In their company, they face the organization of daily life, food, tools, personal hygiene as well as the relationship with the environment and the animals.

Fruition conditions: mandatory booking, max 50 students. Duration: max 1.00 hour.
target: nursery school, 1° class primary school.

From Salento to Mediterranean

✶ When did humans appear on Earth and how many species existed? ✶ When did they arrive in Salento and where did they live? ✶ What is a glaciation? ✶ What was Salento like at that time? ✶ Which animals lived in it? ✶ What does Neolithic mean and how did human life change? ✶ What do we mean by Metal Age and who are the travellers from Micene? ✶ What were dolmen and menhir used for?
This is the base of the whole museum offer, appropriately studied for the different classes facing the study of prehistory, in-depth elaborations and updates with regards to scientific research and the possibility to face different finds classes and typologies. Set as a multidisciplinary path implying the recourse to geology, natural sciences, palaeoclimatology, palaeoanthropology and palaeoethnology themes, examined at different levels and with diversified languages, studied according to the different age ranges and the different school learning levels.

Fruition conditions: mandatory booking. Duration: max 1.00 hour.
Target: from 3rd class of Primary to Senior High School.

Romanelli grotto and superior Palaeolithic environments in Salento

✶ How did the superior Palaeolithic man live, what was the climate like and which animals did he eat? ✶ How was space in grottoes organized? ✶ Why is Romanelli's grotto so important? ✶ How was it possible to make such tiny stone tools? ✶ What did he draw on the walls of the grotto?
From the Romanelli' site we can trace back the faunistic, floral and human environments of Salento's prehistory in palaeolithic age and its first manifestations of art. Targeted for those classes facing the study of territory.

Fruition conditions: mandatory booking. Duration: max 1.30 hours.
target: from 3rd class of Primary to Senior High School.

The wonderful world of Deers’ Grotto

✶ What changed in Neolithic and how does the present man live? ✶ Where are his villages in Salento? ✶ Why is Deers' grotto so important? ✶ Who discovered it and what was found in it? ✶ Who are the shamans? ✶ What do its drawings mean? ✶ Why did children enter the grotto? ✶ What can we do for Deers' grotto?
Deers' grotto is the European biggest and most impressive complex of grotto paintings for the period between 6500 and 4000 years ago. The activity guides the students to the discovery of the neo-eneolithic world and its paintings, from society to tribal and shaman groups; a speech in the educational hall introduces to the analysis and understanding of the paintings as well as a first approach to interpretative methodologies and problems of a complex prehistoric- speleologic and cultural heritage worth the definition of “Human Heritage”. .

Fruition conditions: mandatory booking. duration: 2.00 hours.
target: from 3rd class of Primary to Senior High School..

The power of fire

✶ How and when did men capture fire? ✶ Why was it essential for the development of mankind? ✶ Which aspects of life immediately benefited from this discovery? ✶ Which were the techniques developed to light the fire and to keep it burning? ✶ Which was the role played by the fire with the coming of agriculture? ✶ Could there ever be the metals' fusion without fire?
The capture of fire was the first irreversible stage of a technological and cultural process. This activity leads the students to the discovery of the different stages of this progress, carried out in different prehistoric ages, developed in the exhibition in 4 in-depth stations: The power of Fire. The first challenge. Fire capture and maintenance strategies. Cooking. Lighting methods and the progress in the hygiene-food field. The conquer of the Earth. The role played by fire in the first agricultural techniques and in the modification of environments and landscapes. The Dragon's spit. The role played by fire in the first metallurgy: forges, furnaces and the first forms of craftsman caste.

Fruition conditions: mandatory booking. duration: max 1.00 hour.
target: Primary and Junior High School.

Art and crafts in prehistory

✶ When did art first appear and who were the authors?. ✶ Art's s meanings and symbols. ✶ The world of ideas and the world of things. ✶ Materials, techniques, styles and artistic waves in prehistory and relevant interpretative hypotheses. ✶ The places of prehistoric art . ✶ The meaning of the Venuses. ✶ The Bos of Romanelli's grotto. ✶ Symbolism in Deers' grotto. ✶ Furniture art and decorative styles of ceramics and ornamental objects.
Art is art always, everywhere and at any time. It cannot be labelled or relegated to inferior fields of expression or communication capability. Since the beginning, Mankind poured its inner world into this original skill, combining in it fears and uneasiness,rules and laws, real and supernatural worlds, as well as technical research and scenographic taste which impress still today, arousing strong emotions from spheres which are well beyond their prosaic interpretations.

Fruition conditions: mandatory booking. duration: 2.00 hours.
target: Senior High School.

The first farmers

✶ How and when did agriculture originate? ✶ What does "neolithization" mean? ✶ Which is the role played by the agricultural economy in the development of stable settlements? ✶ How does society transform itself?

Following the different stages which led to the passage from a hunting-harvesting economy to a productive economy, there arouses an observation on the long time of development of processes, generally perceived as “basic” yet crucial in the start and achievement of the first revolution in history of mankind: the neolithic revolution. Understanding the complexity of the innovation represented by agriculture offers a key to assess he human progresses in time, together with the ideological and political implications and the ecological consequences which originated from that initial moment of territory exploitation. This activity was studied for Senior high Schools facing the study of agriculture.

Fruition conditions: mandatory booking. duration: 3.00 hours.
target: Senior High School.

Museum for Tourism

✶ What does museum mean, today? ✶ How to organize a cultural offer ✶ Definition of a tourist target ✶ Who prepares the offer?
The museum, apart from being solely a place of conservation and exhibition, sets up as an always developing reality, able to interact with the territory and contributing to its tourist and cultural development. Through the elaboration of themes relevant to cultural heritage, organisation of the offers, the choice of languages, museum management and marketing and group discussions on the topics examined, we aim to offer some guidelines for a tourist offer of a quality cultural set.

Fruition conditions: mandatory booking. duration: 3.00 hours.
target: Senior High School.

Let's have lesson… and now over to the teachers

Those teachers willing to have lesson using the museum's exhibition areas, have this option offered for free, thus having the chance to autonomously organize paths and topics, also helping the students to get acquainted with the museum's exhibition areas, a privileged place for an in-depth elaboration of their school knowledges. The educational Section supports the preparation of lessons by means of the” Sportello Insegnanti”.

Fruition conditions: mandatory booking, max 50 students. duration: max 1.00 hour.
target: any kind of schools.

^{Click here for booking}