A number of Bronze Age discoveries were made during upgrades to a methane pipeline in the Italian province of Salerno, the Italian news agency ANSA reports.
Bronze Age footprints, both from animals and from humans, were initially identified as work was conducted on the Diramazione Nocera-Cava dei Tirreni methane pipeline in the municipalities of Nocera Superiore, Nocera Inferiore, Roccapiemonte, and Castel San Giorgio. This prompted a two-year-long archaeological investigation.
SoGEarch, an Italian archaeological society, oversaw the excavations through the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Salerno and Avellino.
The footprints found near the Casarzano stream in Salerno, roughly 20 miles away from Pompeii, contained rock fragments from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Experts believe the people who left behind these prints were trying to escape the eruption.
Most associate Vesuvius with the 79 CE eruption that encased Pompeii in ash, preserving it for eternity. But this eruption happened about 2,000 years earlier, in 1995 BCE, and is considered to have been even more destructive.
At the time of the Bronze Age eruption, there was an organized community village with huts, as evidenced by the remains of the earth foundations and ceramic fragments.
A sanctuary dating between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE was discovered near Nuceria Alfaterna. Ceramic votive offerings found at the sanctuary will undergo further analysis in an effort to understand cult practices and venerated deities.
Burial remains were also found grouped together in lined pits covered with tuff slabs. Most of these graves appeared to made for children, who were buried with essential goods. They date back to the era transition between the Roman empire and late antiquity. In one of the Roman villas, experts identified another group of tombs.
