There are 2200 caves in Puglia. One that is very popular is found in Altamura. This is a city that is famous for the Altamura Cave Man that it brings a historical story from the Lamalunga cave and the Altamura man.
The geologist explored the entrance of the cave in 1989. This gave the geologist to study the cave from the inside. In 1991, they opened up a new artificial entrance to discover the inside of the cave.
The cave is around 1 km long. They found a lot of animals and only one man. It is in fact now called the Altamura Man.
The Altamura Man
The Altamura man is a fossil homo, which was discovered in 1993 in the Lamalunga Cave. It has more than 400,000 years. This brought a lot of history to Altamura. The Altamura man was found 100metres from the entrance.
The Altamura man is still kept in the Lamalunga cave. Despite this, unfortunately, people can never visit or see by themselves live this kind of nature inside the cave.
The Lamalunga Visitor Centre
Nowadays, the ‘Lamalunga Visitor Centre’ gives the opportunity to take a virtual tour with a 3D glasses of the Altamura man and the cave.
At ‘Lamalunga Visitor Centre’, met Filipo who he gave us a great tour of the museum and the history of the caves along he explained into details the Altamura man with the virtual video.
He explained about the limestone that is found in that area.
“The water dissolves the limestone remains a remnant of the bauxite-derived red earth chemical process.”
Apart from the history of the Altamura man another thing that fascinated me was the ‘fluorescence and luminescence of calcite minerals’. These are rocks in a variety of colours which they
I hugely recommend this tour as it has a very interesting historical and nature exploration of Puglia and Altamura.
When the tour at the ‘Lamalunga Visitor Centre’ was coming to an end. Filipo suggested visiting another interesting area in Altamura.
Pulo
Headed along with a bumpy road to ‘Pulo’. The views were so beautiful but it was a place that at that time we had to take only photos and get back to the car. The reason behind this is because the cold and the strong winds where affecting us.
Do you know some historical caves? Any stories you want to share. Comment below with your story.
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