Grotta di San Teodoro
Prehistoric cave in Acquedolci, an important Upper Palaeolithic site with burials and remains of extinct animals; free admission.
Have only individual sections read aloud
About the museum
The Grotta di San Teodoro opens onto the face of a high limestone cliff, the Pizzo Castellaro, about two kilometres south-east of the village of Acquedolci. The site is one of the cornerstones of our knowledge of the Upper Palaeolithic in the Mediterranean: excavations have uncovered five burials of exceptional importance for understanding the island's earliest inhabitants. The woman found among the remains, aged about 30 and 164 cm tall, has been given the name Thea.
It is the only cave in Sicily to have yielded skeletal remains of Upper Palaeolithic populations, from a phase between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago. Among the stone tool industries, mainly in flint and quartzite, at least two cultural facies can be distinguished, and the deposit has yielded fossil remains of thousands of animals now extinct, such as dwarf elephants, hyenas, deer, hippopotamuses and dwarf horses.
The name derives from the Basilian monks who took refuge here around the year 1000. A selection of the finds is displayed in the Antiquarium comunale di Acquedolci, in Via Francesco Crispi. The site is managed by the Parco archeologico di Tindari.
Highlights
- Upper Palaeolithic burials
- Fossil remains of extinct animals
- Stone tools made of flint and quartzite
- A karst cave in the cliff of the Pizzo Castellaro
Permanent exhibition
- Grotta preistorica di San Teodoro – Upper Palaeolithic site with burials and fossil deposits; the finds are displayed in the Antiquarium comunale di Acquedolci.
- Operated by
- Parco archeologico di Tindari (Regione Siciliana)
- Visitors per year
- approx. 2,368
Admission & discounts
Admission is free.
Free admission.
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