Everything
is related to Naples
The Devil's Footprints
 Just to the
north of Naples, in the province of Caserta,
is the Roccamonfina Regional Park. It is in
the hills just north of the Campanian plain
and the Volturno river
and bounded on the other side by the Garigliano river
valley. The area contains the towns of
Roccamonfina, Sessa Aurunca, and Teano, among
others. The area is rich in history, from the
"cyclopean" (very large) walls of pre-Roman Italic
peoples to Roman ruins to medieval towns
and churches, to Teano (where Garibaldi and
King Victor Emanuel met and shook hands in
1861 to seal the future of the new Italy) all
the way up to WWII—the area borders on the
Liri valley, called "Death Valley" by soldiers
of the Allied armies advancing on the
ferocious German
defenses at Monte Cassino in 1943.
The Roccamonfina park, itself, is an area of
some 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres). The most
prominent part of the park is the Roccamonfina
volcano, the oldest volcanic complex in the
Campania region of Italy. The geological
history of the Roccamonfina volcano had three
main eruptive periods: (1) 630,000 - 400,000
years ago; (2) 385,000 and 230,000 years ago);
(3) a period that ended 50,000 years ago, just
as the better known eruptions to the south,
i.e. the Archiflegrean
caldera and, later, Mt. Vesuvius were
about to start.
 The most remarkable thing within
the Roccamonfona park is the presence of early
"human" footprints—or at least footprints made
by our hominid ancestors. There are 56 such
impressions on the slopes of the
volcano—footprints laid down between 325,000
and 385,000 years ago, during the second
eruptive period of the volcano. The prints
display raised arches and ball and heel
impressions; they were left by a small band of
individuals, from 3-6 persons. The prints and
length of stride indicate that they were under
five-feet tall. The individuals belonged to a
pre-human species, probably to the hominid
ancestor, Homo
heidelbergensis, the direct ancestor of both
Homo
neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. If
these assessments are correct, they are the oldest
prints of the Homo
genus ever found. Although the prints
were first reported reliably and
scientifically just a few years ago in 2003,
the prints have been known to locals for
centuries and have earned the name in folklore
as the Ciampate
del Diavolo—the Devil's footprints.
After all, who else could run through molten
lava?
If the estimates of the size of the
individuals is correct, they were somewhat
shorter than the typical adult
Homo
heidelbergensis. Maybe anomalous individuals—or
maybe
a
group
of
children. Whoever
they were, they were running and scrambling
downhill (there are also hand prints to
indicate that they reached down to steady
themselves on the steep terrain). Most likely
they were fleeing an eruption. Think about
it—they ran for their lives through lava still
hot enough to take the imprints of their feet.
We don't know if they made it.
to encyclopedia index
to history
portal index
|
