Exhibition sections

Spiral of life

_{^{Spiral of life}}

The current exhibition is organized in 3 sections, Geology and Palaeontology, Palaeolithic Age and Prehistoric Art, Neolithic and Metals Age. The section dedicated to ethnographic sub-Saharan African Art is almost complete. From the first evidence of life in Salento, dating to the end of the Cretaceous period, the attempt to reconstruct the territory and human groups who settled there takes us to the threshold of the Iron Age, covering an exhibition area for a time period lasting longer than 65 million years.

Its panels reveal very diverse natural, human and animal life environments: from the Coral Reef that bordered Salento on the Adriatic side about 35 million years ago, to the internal lagoon areas still present in the Palaeolithic period; from tropical animals to hippopotamuses, hyenas, ancient penguins and elephants that lived together with the Neanderthal man, to the glacial fauna coming from the Arctic and from northern Europe, like the now extinct penguins, the Alca impennis, Icelandic cranes, Arctic pigeons, polar foxes and the Mammoth that lived with the Homo Sapiens sapiens during the last peak of the Würmian ice age.

These ancient men and their settlements were brought to light by the osteological findings and the lithic, bone and ceramics works and the objects of art from the Palaeolithic period (about 80-10 thousand years ago) to the end of the Bronze Age (3500-2900 years ago), recovered in Grotta Romanelli, Grotta Zinzulusa, in Cattie di Maglie, in Gotta dei Cervi at Porto Badisco and in the district the Alimini Lakes and the Uluzzo Bay.
Graphic reconstructions and multimedia stations, detailed panels, reporting items with the aid of pictures/drawings and/or photos and suggestive wall ideograms of the ancient artistic languages of the man who lived in prehistoric Salento accompany the visitor through this journey back in time.

Bibliography:

_{M. A. Orlando, L'Alca. Città di Maglie. Il Museo Civico di Paleontologia e Paletnologia "Decio de Lorentiis", Maglie 2003.}

_{M. A. Orlando, Scuola e musei scientifici. Figure, strumenti e argomenti per la conoscenza del territorio, in M. A. Orlando (a cura di), Le Scienze geo-archeologiche e bibliotecarie al servizio della Scuola, Monteroni 2005.}

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