Matera is an ancient city. According to the travel portal travel365.it is the third oldest city in the world, with settlements dating from about 10.000 years ago.

A journey that began in Paleolithic, crossing the Neolithic, the age of metals and thus the Middle Ages to the Modern Age. The testimonials are in National Museum Ridola Matera, inside which is preserved archaeological material crucial to know the prehistory of the South.

Testimonials, intact in their original, that make the city of Matera unique and allow students to trace in a really unique way that man has done since the beginning of its history to date.

The National Park of’High Murgia covers a total area of ​​about 8000 hectares in the area between Matera and Montescaglioso. The continuous presence of man in this area is evidenced by caves, rock churches and dozens of Neolithic villages, full of tanks and sepulchres.

The demonstration of the presence of a real community that lived permanently this territory is offered to us by the presence of small tombs, destined to receive the body of babies and toddlers.

The tombs of the Neolithic villages have a special, are all oriented in a direction: the North 10.000 years ago. In fact the earth is subject to precessing axis, a slow but continuous rotation which changes the orientation of its axis of rotation with respect to the celestial sphere.

The effect is the change of the position of the celestial poles: between about 13.000 Vega will be years and not the North Star, to indicate the north pole on the celestial sphere. Thanks to a careful study of this phenomenon, starting with the orientation of the Neolithic tombs was able to trace the date of their origin, set about 10.000 years ago.