The Dawn of Rock Archaeology: The Early 20th Century

In the red Guida d’Italia, published by the Italian Touring Club in 1914 and edited by Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli, the text about the excursion routes between the villages of Breno and Capo di Ponte was the first report of rock engravings in modern times: “In a field one encounters before reaching the Pieve (lit., Parish church), two large boulders with sculptures and graffiti, similar to the famous ones found at the Lake of Wonders, in the Maritime Alps.” The author of the note, referring to the Copper Age boulders in Pian delle Greppe, in Cemmo (hamlet of Capo di Ponte), was the young mountaineer, naturalist and geologist Gualtiero (Walther) Laeng: already in 1909, in an unfortunately lost letter addressed to the Touring Club’s “National Committee for the Protection of Landscapes and Monuments,” he discussed the exceptional importance and extreme antiquity of the rocks.

Research came to a halt during World War I, since the frontline crossed the northernmost part of Valcamonica (bordering with the then Austrian Empire), thus making it impossible for scholars to frequent the area. During these years, the boulder Cemmo II was completely covered by brushwood, so much so that it was not mentioned in the publications of the time! It would see the light again only in 1930, thanks to the research carried out by Giovanni Marro.

During the 1920s, Ligurian-Piedmontese geologist Senofonte Squinabol turned out to be a key figure in the discovery and popularization of the Camunian rock engravings. In the past, Squinabol had also supervised surveys for the Geological Map in the Mount Bego area, carefully examining and verifying the engravings, which had long been known in scientific circles. Arriving in Valcamonica at the end of the Great War, he became interested in the rocks and geological morphology of the valley. He established his summer residence in Cemmo and became in-laws with Murachelli, the podestà of Capo di Ponte. While studying glacial streaks on local sandstones, Squinabol discovered and recognized several rock engravings and, together with the podestà, searched in Cemmo for the boulders described by Laeng—noting, in 1921, the concealment of the second boulder and having it cleared of brush and debris. However, his report—accompanied also by some (now disappeared) plaster casts—went unheeded, also because the Royal Superintendence of Excavations and Museums of Lombardy, based at the Certosa of Pavia, was about to be dissolved: in 1924, jurisdiction over Lombardy passed to the Superintendence of Turin, where the inspector Pietro Barocelli, who was very attentive to the study and documentation of rock engravings, especially those of Mount Bego, was employed.

Moreover, also a local scholar, Giuseppe Bonafini (from Cividate Camuno), reported and described the boulder that was still visible at Pian delle Greppe in his dissertation, La Valcamonica nelle età preistoriche e romana (“Valcamonica in the prehistoric and Roman eras”), discussed in 1927. In the wake of these early reports, the Turin-based anthropologist Giovanni Marro applied for a concession to conduct research in Cemmo in 1928, and from the following year until 1933 he carried out regular campaigns in Valcamonica.

The Roaring Thirties: Bonafini, Marro, Battaglia and the German Missions

From the 1930s onwards, Giuseppe Bonafini‘s silent and constant work in the field of rock archaeology uncovered a complex, shifting and often difficult historical landscape: therefore, it is impossible not to admire this scholar, for whom the pleasure of archaeological discovery was always accompanied by a lively concern for the protection of the property and for its dissemination to the public. In 1930, in his pamphlet dedicated to the Cemmo boulder, Bonafini recognized some overlaps and correctly connected those engravings to the petroglyphs of Mount Bego, hypothesizing that they must date back to the beginnings of human life in Valcamonica. In a subsequent article, accompanied by wonderful photographs, he described the boulders known as Cemmo 1 and Cemmo 2 (finally recovered); moreover, as early as 1932 he hoped—with visionary insight—for the establishment of a “National Prehistoric Park”, to enhance and safeguard the most numerous and important groups of engravings. In the following decades, his activity would continue indefatigably, leading to other remarkable scientific insights and valuable discoveries in the 1950s.

However, the 1930s are well known for the arrival in Valcamonica of distinguished scholars, both Italian and foreign, but above all also for the ideological implications that these missions entailed, which had decidedly important reflections not only in the interpretations they gave to the petroglyphs, but also in the lives of the individual protagonists.

Giovanni Marro, an anthropologist from Turin with a degree in Medicine and Surgery, arrived in Cemmo in 1929, preceded by his reputation as a scholar and anthropologist. Initially convinced (because of Barocelli’s stylistic observations and Squinabol’s geological ones) of the antiquity of the Cemmo engravings, especially of the daggers, he would later change his opinion in the context of a true power conflict with Raffaello Battaglia, inspector of the Superintendence of the Three Venetiae, who had arrived in November 1931 to explore the area. In 1929, by a strange coincidence also scholar Paolo Graziosi was invited to examine the surviving Cemmo boulder, on Laeng’s recommendation: each of them unknowing of the other, Marro and Graziosi made sketches and frottages of the figures and even intervened in different sessions of the same conference, exposing their hypotheses on the character and possible dating of the find. However, after this brief interlude in Valcamonica (about which he published in 1931), Graziosi would turn to other studies, establishing himself as one of the most influential and esteemed scholars of Prehistory in postwar Italy.

Thus, the floor was left to Giovanni Marro, who would carry out the excavation of the second Cemmo boulder, finally bringing it back to light. The exceptional importance of the area prompted archaeologist Ettore Ghislanzoni, together with Raffaello Battaglia, to carry out some inspections, in order to include the two boulders in the list of National Monuments and thus allow their protection. Antonio Nicolussi, assistant of the Superintendence of the Three Venetiaa, in Giàdeghe (in the territory of Sellero) saw the first rock engravings on outcropping rock. The report immediately set Marro in motion: thanks to his friendship with Squinabol, together with podestà Giovanni Murachelli and the great local historian Don Romolo Putelli, he managed to obtain a very large number of reports and, also thanks to the fruitful and valuable collaboration with forest ranger Longino Amaracco, he identified almost all the areas still known in the middle Valley: names such as Naquane (or, better said, “Nacquane”), Zurla, Foppe di Nadro, Scale di Cimbergo and Scale di Paspardo, Redònt, Cunvài, Niévet appeared in Marro’s writings since the very early 1930s.

Marro collected an impressive amount of documentation: drawings, casts and (above all) photographs attest to an uninterrupted and assiduous activity—as shown by his over 30 publications on the matter, published mainly between 1930 and 1935. Some of Marro’s discoveries mark a turning point in rock art studies: one example is the monograph published in 1935, the first dedicated to a rock in Valcamonica, on the so-called “Rock of the Five Inscriptions” in Campanine di Cimbergo. This paper addressed not only the epigraphic-linguistic question related to Iron Age populations, but also the crux concerning the ethnic identity of the users of this peculiar alphabet, also known then as “Sondrio alphabet.” A heated and delicate debate concerning the exceptional epigraphic importance of the document arose, also involving foreign scholars and inevitably—given the era—getting entangled in the matter of ethnic superiority implications. In other cases, the scholar’s reports prompt researchers to rediscover lost engravings (as happened in the case of the chariot in Paspardo, rediscovered in 1999—a full 65 years after its first publication). A truly modern approach was the delicate chalk treatment employed by Marro to highlight the figures, making them more easily visible, as well as the accurate precision both in his descriptions—carefully analysing the overlaps—and in topography analysis: both elements are characteristic of a solid scientific methodology, which was not always present in interpretative theories (most of which are no longer acceptable today).

November 1931 marked the arrival of archaeologist Raffaello Battaglia, officially appointed by the Superintendency of the Three Venetiae: a scholar of absolute rigor, who approached exploration and research with a very rational method. In the few years he worked in Valcamonica, which were described in his masterful publications (1932-34), he illustrated remarkable discoveries: for example, the rocks with topographic complexes of Bedolina and Pià d’Ort, which he correctly interpreted as cultivated fields (comparing them with similar figures from Mount Bego), but also the plowing scenes in Seradina (rock 12). However, the arrival of this brilliant archaeologist brought about a sort of “feud” between him and Marro, at times rather heavy-handed, about the priority of discoveries and the analysis and interpretation of rock art.

Until 1933, the influence of the nationalistic tendencies (close to the theses of the Fascist regime) was limited to the affirmation of the autochthony of the prehistoric population that engraved the rocks in Valcamonica; however, in his conflict with Raffaello Battaglia, Marro embraces a chronology flattened on the Iron Age, thus leading him to “historicize” the engravings in a key of exaltation of the civilization from Valcamonica, which he connected to the Ligurians; later—particularly between 1938 and 1940, due to his increasingly close connection to Fascism—he adhered to racial theories and definitively linked the impressive Camunian palethnological emporium to the idea of the primacy of the Italic race, already founded on the values carried by “the plow and the sword”.

So, in addition to claiming the importance of freedom of research and publicly criticizing Marro both for his posturing as the first discoverer of the engravings—role that actually belonged to Laeng—and for his attempts to monopolize the research (which Marro was trying to achieve through his political connections), Battaglia also responded to his colleague about some of his incorrect interpretations. For example, Marro believed that the Camunian civilization he discovered lived on stilts and was devoted to water cults, as evidenced also by the depiction of “paddles” (now interpreted as a small shovel, rather than an oar); Battaglia, on the other hand, due to the geomorphological conformation of the territory, drastically disproved this hypothesis and argued that the hut depictions could also be interpreted as barns or haylofts—a surprisingly modern interpretation. However, in the scholarly conflict of those years the most scientific approach was undoubtedly that of Raffaello Battaglia.

Despite Battaglia’s erroneous beliefs about the tools used to make the engravings (according to him, all made out of metal) and the chronology (entirely dating back to the Iron Age), his writings were rich in interesting and pertinent observations, often still valid today, both on the distribution of the engraved rocks in relation to the geological formations of the valley and on the grouping of the engravings into several topographically distinct groups (Cemmo, Sellero, Cimbergo, Paspardo). Also the comparisons he established with some Iron Age material finds were extremely important: Battaglia was the one who linked the labyrinth on the Great Rock of Naquane with the one graffitied on an oinochoe (a pitcher for pouring wine) from the Etruscan necropolis of Tragliatella; he also established a parallel between the engraved horses from Valcamonica and those depicted in Greco-Italic vase painting and, above all, in the ones from the so-called art of the Situle—bronze bucket-shaped vases of great beauty, widespread and produced in the Venetian, Etruscan, Celtic and Germanic areas. Moreover, thanks to his friendship and collaboration with Bonafini, Battaglia correctly compared northern Etruscan inscriptions with those found on brick material from the nearby site of Cividate Camuno. Unlike the other scholars, finally, he also sensed the importance of historical engravings, continuers of the ancient prehistoric tradition: his photographs of the crenelated towers, keys and structures from the area of Scale di Cimbergo were the first to be made, just like he was the first to research the area of Monticolo (near Darfo Boario Terme)—where, as he pointed out in his fundamental publication on the area (1934), in addition to crosses there are also human figures, angels, floral motifs, sacred objects or short inscriptions. It was also his intuition to attribute to an historical age (specifically, after the 13th century) the engraving of the so-called “Blacksmith’s House” from Pià d’Ort. Finally, he discreetly entered the ethnographic question by proposing the juxtaposition of the Iron Age people with the Camunni mentioned in ancient sources—again in controversy with Marro, who instead traced them to Ligurian stock. The last act in their controversy occurred at the Mountain Exhibition in Breno, where they presented the scientific results of their findings to the general public. Subsequently, perhaps because of Marro’s growing political influence or because he was eager for other experiences in the field of prehistory, Battaglia stopped working on rock art and began excavating the pile dwelling in Ledro (Trento), which had come to light in 1929—another milestone in the career of this first-rate archaeologist.

The discoveries in Valcamonica, lacking resonance in the official Italian archaeology of the time, did not go unnoticed in Germany. In fact, Leo Frobenius, director of the Institut für Kulturmorphologie in Frankfurt am Main and well-known scholar of prehistoric and ethnographic art (especially from Africa), sent photographer and designer Erika Trautmann to Valcamonica in 1935: an interesting researcher figure, despite her also being a perfect example of gender stereotypes (being assistant, cooperator, and even mistress of famous scholars). In fact, Trautmann, partly thanks to her close friendship with Hermann Göring, was not only the driving force behind the petroglyph survey campaigns in Valcamonica, but also an able procurer of funds for the research she conducted from 1936 with Franz Altheim, to whom we owe the publications of those years.

Franz Altheim was a historian of Roman religion and Antiquity, but also cultivated philological interests. Professor at the University of Halle since 1937, together with Trautmann he became a member of the Forschungsgemeinschaft Deutsches Ahnenerbe (“Research Society of the German Ancestral Heritage”), a sort of cultural association of the SS, with the objective to prove the origin of the Aryan (that is, Indo-Germanic) civilization. Reappointed to the Halle chair in 1948, he moved two years later to the Free University of Berlin as professor of Ancient History, where he taught until his retirement in 1965. The materials produced during the 1935-1937 missions are all preserved in the Frobenius Institut and represent an outstanding archive for research history. The second campaign sponsored by the institute, in addition to Trautmann, Altheim, and other draughtsmen, also saw the participation of Károl Kerényi. The Germans were led to the rocks by ranger Longino Amaracco, later disowned and accused by Marro for this very reason. A third mission of the Frankfurt Institut für Kulturmorphologie was conducted in Italy by Douglas C. Fox in 1937, completing the documentation for the German institution, later published by Maria Weyersberg in 1938. Altheim and Trautmann, on the other hand, continued their research independently and even joined Himmler’s Deutches Anhenerbe, a Nazi cultural organ established for the purpose of proving the Aryan origin of civilization.

There are no less than six works on Valcamonica, given to the presses jointly between 1937 and 1943. Among the mission’s most important findings there are their discoveries in the area of Scale di Cimbergo, but also the report of the large deer-horned figure on rock 70 in Naquane, later recognized as the Celtic god Kernunnos by Jacobstahl, as well as the swastika-shaped Camunian rose, first discovered and photographed by Erika Trautmann in 1936 at Bedolina. The German scholars also tried to identify a chronology of the engravings; in the wake of Italian research, they dated the earliest evidence of rock art to the Early Iron Age. Their historical reconstruction, however, falls victim to heavy ideological conditioning, not unlike that of the Fascists: unlike Marro (who strenuously supported the thesis of an Italic autochthony, later to generate the greatness of the Empire of Rome), Altheim, directly comparing the engraving from Valcamonica with Scandinavian rock art, came to support the Indo-Germanic origin of the local popoulations, known as Euganeans. The greater antiquity of the Scandinavian rocks, the runic-like alphabetical signs, the presence of a deity linked to the solar disk—all seemed to point to a direct migration of the Aryans, who would later forge the Roman civilization. On the rocks of Valcamonica, therefore, power plays developed within the cultural institutions of regimes, aiming to define the origins of European identity.

World War II thus marks a transition to a new period: Marro, a senator of the Kingdom of Italy since 1939, while re-proposing between 1945 and 1947 further reflections on rock art, would be in fact marginalized from academia; Altheim, despite having resumed his academic position, would no longer mention (except sporadically) the campaigns he carried out in Valcamonica; finally, Erika Trautman would be excluded from research in the Federal Republic of Germany, despite her collaboration with Altheim also after the war. At the European level, some of Altheim’s theses were discussed, and criticized, in the 1940s by leading scholars of the time, such as Paul Jacobstahl and Pierre Lambrechts.

1950s: The Recovery of Rock Art Research and Anati’s Arrival

After the war, in 1948, attention was brought back to Valcamonica and its rock art by the publication of a study on building figures by Gabriella Manfrin Guarnieri, a student of Raffaello Battaglia, on the prestigious journal “Rivista di Scienze Preistoriche” (Journal on Prehistoric Sciences), founded by Paolo Graziosi. Also in this period, Pietro Leonardi, from the University of Ferrara, uncovered important finds in Seradina and Paspardo. Later, in 1953, Battaglia was called back to Valcamonica by Giuseppe Bonafini, so that the scholar could study and publish the newly found Masso di Borno (published together with Acanfora in 1954). In 1957 Battaglia also published the Masso di Ossimo, also discovered by Bonafini, but unfortunately the great scholar passed away prematurely only one year later, leaving the archive on his research in the valley to Bonafini’s family, who still preserves it today.

In this period scholars could count on a local guide: Battista Maffessoli, also known as “Pitoto” (the nickname given by the locals to the rock engravings), a young man from Capo di Ponte (the village in which the Cemmo boulders and the rock engravings of Naquane were found) who had been passionate about the local rock engravings since childhood, an outstanding expert on places and sites. He was an eclectic and complex figure of craftsman, painter and sculptor; during his activity, he brought thousands of tourists to the rocks, but also dozens of scholars, including foreign ones—such as Hercli Bertogg, Peter Vilhelm Glob, Raymond Christinger, Gehrard Radke—even establishing lasting bonds of esteem and friendship with some of them. He also made very accurate plaster casts of certain engravings or even entire rocks, so that the rich rock art heritage of Valcamonica could be known elsewhere.

However, the early 1950s were not free from controversy: a vitriolic war, especially over the priority of discovery of certain sites (such as the Coren de le Fate in Sonico), raged between Savina Fumagalli—Marro’s favorite pupil and an assiduous supporter of his theses—and the “group from Brescia”, which arose within the “Gruppo Naturalistico Regazzoni”, linked to Laeng and later expanded to the Museum of Natural Sciences of Brescia, the leading exponent of which was certainly its director, Emanuele Süss, a scholar from Milan. The group, mostly composed of natural science scholars, had been addressing the problem of protecting engraved areas since the year 1950. Thanks to the support of Bonafini (who was an inspector of the Superintendency and mayor of Cividate Camuno) and the guidance of Battista Maffessoli, the group made numerous discoveries and did its best to ensure that in the vast Camunian heritage would be known and publicized in the area of Brescia (the province to which Valcamonica belongs). In 1954 Laeng, an expert in the area, identified engravings of great importance on the hill of Luine, above Boario Terme: the known area with rock art in Valcamonica thus expanded, enriched by another extraordinary complex. During subsequent explorations in the area called Crape, the Brescian scholars brought with them Giovanni Marini, a young boy from the nearby hamlet of Gorzone who would later become a close collaborator of Emmanuel Anati: a passionate guide and stalwart guardian of the Luine park until his untimely death.

In the same year 1954, Laeng and Süss organized a major exhibition on the rock engravings of Valcamonica at the Brescia Castle Museum. The event attracted tens of thousands of visitors, definitively consecrating the fame of the then-unknown valley. The display was carefully designed in every detail: in addition to drawings illustrating the engraved themes, thanks to the numerous and wonderful plaster casts (some of which made by Battista Maffessoli himself), the public had the possibility to gain real knowledge and perceive the great value of rock art. In those years, Emanuele Süss worked to draw up a map of the historiated rocks in the Naquane and Ronchi di Zir areas: in the 1930s Raffaello Battaglia had already marked the rocks with numbers, but those figures had become illegible in the 1950s, thus making it necessary to come up with a new map. The precise mapping of the 93 rocks located in that area contributed greatly to the protection of the site, and the numbering is still preserved today in the Naquane Park—established in 1955, thanks to the intervention of Superintendent Mario Mirabella Roberti. Then, in 1956, Süss wrote the first bibliography on Valcamonica rock engravings, while Bonafini illustrated this chronology in a talk at the First Prehistoric Conference of the Brescian area.

In all this popularization and enhancement fervor (even resulting in a pioneering video), many discoveries were made in close succession by Laeng and his entourage. Süss also devoted particular attention to the reporting and publication of new inscriptions in the Camunian alphabet, a fact that seemed to confirm his conviction that the engravings mostly dated to the late Iron Age, if not even to the early Roman period. Süss’ approach towards Camunian rock art reached its definitive maturity in 1958, when a popular monograph—with excellent photographs and a brief introductory essay—saw the light of day. Due to the enormous value of Camunian rock art, Emanuele Süss took action to create a study center dedicated to the area—which, in his intention, was to be based in Brescia and possibly supported by the city’s University.

However, the whole story of research on Valcamonica rock art was destined to change in 1956, with the arrival of then 26-year-old Emmanuel Anati, a graduate in Geography from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and (since 1954) student of Henri Breuil. When he came to Valcamonica, Anati was looking for comparisons with the rock art of Mount Bego, his specific field of research. Thanks to the guidance of Battista Maffessoli, the brilliant young scholar immediately became aware of the exceptional heritage depicted on the rocks. In the following years, while continuing his studies with Raymond Vaufrey in Paris, he moved between Harvard, Oxford and London.

From 1957 to 1959, the Anati Mission brought to Valcamonica the first students actively involved in survey and classification activities. Right from the start, it became clear how Anati’s approach to the rock phenomenon marked a decisive turning point from traditional methods, both in theory and in practice: it was apparent that it could revolutionize knowledge and lay the foundations for a scientific approach, still indispensable today. From the very beginning, the young scholar applied himself to systematically documenting entire surfaces, and not just individual scenes; he worked out an increasingly precise standard filing system that could be used to collect data and catalogue them; he combined photographic documentation with manual surveying of surfaces (at first, after highlighting them in chalk, reproduced freehand from a square scheme, then by contact, using transparent sheets and, from the late 1960s, indelible ink or markers); he paid particular attention to overlaps, to make the rock stratigraphy clearer, which is extremely useful in terms of relative chronology. Moreover, he classified figures into different styles to allow absolute chronology, supported by continuous comparison with material archaeological finds (by comparing the engravings of weapons, certain ornaments or graphic renditions, etc. with actual findings from necropolis or other archaeological excavations of similar age and area) and he also sought out to interpret symbolic and narrative-descriptive scenes according to parallels with neighboring cultures.

The first results of these methodological innovations were apparent since the very first missions carried out by Anati (1957-1959), with the support of students, enthusiasts and volunteers: in 1957 they identified two extraordinary parietal compositions in the Capitello dei Due Pini (Plas locality, Paspardo), sharing similarities with the boulders from Cemmo, Ossimo and Borno, and they were immediately published on the Bullettin of Italian Paleethnology. A decisive turning point in the study of rock art was the integral survey and study of the Great Rock of Naquane carried out by the entire group of the Anati Mission, which in 1959 will be the subject of Anati’s doctoral thesis—published in 1960 in the prestigious series of the Institut de Paleontologie Humaine. Together with his scientific publication activity, Anati also did his best to popularize the art of Valcamonica throughout Europe: his work La Civilisation du Valcamonica (1959) was soon translated for English- and Italian-speaking readers (with the Italian edition as the most recent, published in 1964). For American audiences, the book was published in 1961, under the title Camonica Valley, a Depiction of Village life in the Alps from the Birth of Christ as Revealed by Thousands of Newly Found Rock Carvings, by the prestigious Alfred Knopf publishing house. Thanks to these essays, Anati was able to expand the fame of Valcamonica rock art internationally. Moreover, this publication is the one in which, for the first time, rock engravings were divided into a system orgsanized in styles and periods, from the so-called “Protocamunian” period to the Roman age, thus revolutionizing the chronology of rock art and finally rejecting the traditional dating of the whole rock art repertoire to the Iron Age. This classification, subdivided into four main styles (I-IV), would be polished with increasing details, precisely defining phases and sub-phases, until an almost final formulation in 1975.

The 1960s, the founding of the Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici (CCSP), and the great season of the 1970s

In the 1960s, finds followed one another: an important example is the so-called Rock of the Halberds, in the area of Corni Freschi (in Darfo), which was actually ‘found again’ after centuries. The boulder is clearly indicated in a document, dating back to June 1462, concerning a long-standing boundary issue between the inhabitants of Erbanno, Gorzone and Angolo: according to the inhabitants of Erbanno, the boundary line passed as far as the cross set in Cornu delle Falx, et ab ipsa cruce deli Falx (with the topographic name translating as “Rock of the Schytes”). This extraordinary archival discovery, published by Federico Troletti in 2015, opens another strand in the history of studies: how much still lies unexplored among the documents preserved in parish and municipal archives?

New surfaces came to light in Luine in 1962; explorations reached also the area of Sellero, where in 1963 the first images of the “Idol” and the large swastika-shaped Camunian rose were found; in the same year, a new boulder is discovered in Bagnolo di Malegno. In these very years, considerations on the so-called “statue-stelae” led the scholars to confirm the initial hypothesis about the dating of these monuments, that is their belonging to the Copper Age—a conclusion reached also thanks to comparisons with the triangular-bladed daggers found in the Brescian necropolis of Remedello Sotto. The boulders, therefore, became a sort of “index fossil” for understanding the Chalcolithic rock phenomenon and its symbology.

Another important intuition developed in these years was to expand knowledge about the Camunian civilization through archaeological excavation. Thanks to the fruitful collaboration with the Superintendency of Antiquities, Anati obtained permission to open no less than two sites in 1962: the first, concerning the area surrounding the Cemmo boulders, brought to light alignments of large stones between the two knowns stelae and clarified that they were engraved shortly after the collapse of the mountain wall behind them; the other, in the area of Dos dell’Arca, revealed an ancient fortified settlement, with rock engravings, frequented between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Dos dell’Arca has returned a harvest of very interesting materials, and, for the first time, a mug of Rhaetian-type shape, belonging to a specific Iron Age cultural facies that extended as far as Valtellina and the valley of River Chiese.

In 1964, many local authorities—led by the then mayor of Capo di Ponte, Giovan Battista Belotti—finally secured a stable headquarters for the Anati Mission, built by the Bacino Imbrifero Montano (BIM). This was the creation of the “Seminario e Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici ed Etnologici,” later shortened to “Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici” (CCSP), as it is still known today: an independent institution, linked to the territory, that for decades would be a training school for a great many scholars, archaeology and art history students, but also mere enthusiasts of prehistory. The first foreign students came from the United States and Great Britain; the CCSP programmed regular activities: research campaigns, specific publications (the “Archivi” series, whose first volume on Valtellina was published in 1967), journals (the first BCSP, or “Bulletin of the Center for Prehistoric Studies”, was published in 1964-65), conferences, symposia (the first Valcamonica Symposium took place in 1968), exhibitions (such as the ones in 1964 in Brescia and in 1966 in Milan). CCSP promoted both thematic studies (such as Anati’s important volume on daggers in rock art and statue-stelae, 1972) and integral area publications, such as the one about Naquane (1966), in which the beauty of its rocks was fully enhanced by the splendid photographs by Fulvio Roiter. Toward the end of the 1960s, the Luine area was systematically investigated using the so-called neutral treatment, allowing the Mission to uncover many engravings that had been ruined by surface degradation.

The following decade drew distinguished scholars and researchers from all over the world to Valcamonica. Moreover, the educational vocation of CCSP, combined with its international, stimulating, and cutting-edge research environment, proceeded to train entire generations of young archaeologists, rock art experts, and antiquities protection officials. Among the scholars of this first generation, who arrived in Valcamonica in the late 1960s, it is possible to mention Paul and Martine Van Berg Osterrieth, author of an important monograph on chariots, Giuliana Sluga, who published the study on Dos dell’Arca, and Paola Meller Padovani, active in both Seradina and Nadro on Rock 30 and in excavations in the area.

The 1970s opened with a monograph on the Map of Bedolina by Miguel Beltran Lloris, in 1972, and with the end of excavations in the Luine area (1973, later published by Anati in 1982). Luine turned out to be the major rock art hub of the lower Camonica Valley, with an incredible chronological range: from very ancient engravings of large animals (now dated to the Upper Paleolithic) to striking symbolic scenes with arrays of weapons (dating from the early Metal Age to the whole of Iron Age and even modernity). Due to the concerning state of its rocks’ degradation, protecting the area was imperative: thus, in the 1970s, the Luine Municipal Park was established. In 1975, with the seminal essay Evolution and Style in Camunian rock art, Anati definitively set the extremes of a chronology that, with due adjustments, is still valid today, and has served as a model for all other Alpine rock sites.

Activities followed one another frantically, between the biannual cadences of the Valcamonica Symposiums and the opening of new sites. From the early 1970s, the Valley was reached by scholars whose names will be forever linked to the history of research in Valcamonica: first Raffaele de Marinis, Marco Tizzoni, Tiziana Cittadini, Giuseppina Tanda, Anna Maria Zanettin, followed by Filippo Maria Gambari, Luigi Malnati, Francesco Fedele and, later, Umberto Sansoni, Patrizia Frontini, Mila Simões de Abreu, and then Silvana Gavaldo. Among the enthusiasts, it is impossible to forget Giancarlo and Amalia Zerla. The Foppe di Nadro area became the subject of systematic exploration, excavation and survey work, which began in 1971 and continued systematically until 1983: of all the numerous rocks that came to light, the surfaces were fully surveyed, catalogs were drawn up, sectors and scenes were studied (impossible not to mention “the Nadro Temple,” “the cult of the Butterfly Idol,” “the cult of dogs,” the “Comet,” one of the earliest scenes of sexual coupling…). In those years, Foppe was the focus of research and immediately proved to be very rich in numerous complex scenes. Another re-discovery was, in 1976, the monumental composition on rock 30 boulder, already photographed by Marro; at the same time, explorations of a more strictly archaeological nature led to the identification of a “castelliere” (1974), while the results of research around rock 30 were scarce. However, in 1977 an extraordinary discovery took place: the so-called “Riparo 2” (lit., “Shelter 2”), which returned Mesolithic finds, a ritual burial from the Copper Age, and Iron Age ceramics and structures.

In the mid-70s, due to the growing number of visitors (especially schoolchildren), local authorities started to promote the area, setting up panels and preparing trails. An illustrated guidebook was also published for Naquane Park, written by Vincenzo Fusco and Mario Mirabella Roberti; in the meantime, guide services were organized by the Pro Loco (a kind of association, typical of Italy, aiming to promote a particular place, both touristically and culturally) of Capo di Ponte. In 1977, the municipality of Ceto—to which belongs the engraved area of Foppe di Nadro—opened the Museum dedicated to rock art in its hamlet of Nadro, near the entrance of what would later become the Nature Reserve, but despite the great activities that were carried out in the site, only individual rocks would be published, such as number 35 (Umberto Sansoni, 1981). The need to protect and preserve the discoveries led the CCSP to ask the local authorities to establish an archaeological park: this request was the first step towards the establishment of the Nature Reserve of rock engravings of Ceto, Cimbergo and Paspardo in 1983. In 1976-1977, during the excavation in the Le Sante locality (Capo di Ponte), remains of Iron Age pottery were found, with burnt materials and bone remains, leading to the interpretation of the area as a necropolis; the discovery of a similar offering site at the sanctuary of Minerva (in Spinera, near Breno) led Serena Solano to reinterpret Le Sante as a votive stake (2010).

In 1977 Francesco Fedele arrived at CCSP: during his work there, he would identify many archaeological sites between Breno and Capo di Ponte, later devoting himself to research at Breno Castle in the 1980s. In the meantime, Aldo Luigi Prosdocimi (between 1965 and 1971) and Alberto Mancini (1980) resumed studies on inscriptions and the Camunian language, contributing to bringing the few surviving testimonies into the sphere of contemporary scientific debate. The great resonance of the discoveries, international collaborations, and contacts with European and international institutions determined the candidacy of the rock art of Valcamonica in the UNESCO World Heritage List: it was the first Italian title to be included as a World Heritage Site, in 1979—the definitive recognition of the exceptional value of its engravings.

The great season of the 1970s had its definitive crowning in 1982, with the exhibition I Camuni: the roots of European civilization at the Triennale di Milano, followed by a splendidly illustrated volume. From that moment, Anati’s research changed its direction and focused mostly on the attempt to decode the messages proposed by rock art: the scholar thus began carrying out systematic campaigns abroad and collecting data to create a worldwide archive of rock art. This was the beginning of the WARA archive (“World Archive of Rock Art”, containing hundreds of thousands of photographs, documents, drawings), which, together with the CCSP library, is one of the largest data collections in the field of rock art.

The 1980s and 1990s: new schools, new challenges

The new route taken by Anati’s studies led him to look for common signs in the field of spirituality and rock language throughout the five continents, thus he entrusted fieldwork to his collaborators: Tiziana Cittadini, Umberto Sansoni, Mila Simões de Abreu. Thus, more sites were opened to carry out complete surveys of entire areas: on the one hand, the acquisition of a large number of materials allowed the archiving—and thus the preservation—of the rock records; on the other, however, the difficulty, if not impossibility, of proceeding to the complete publication of the same areas became painfully clear. The most striking example is Foppe di Nadro: its integral survey was completed—under the guidance of Tiziana Cittadini—in 1983, but its complete revision aiming at full publication of the area would only come at the turn of the twenty-first century! On the western side of the Valley, a new project in the Seradina area began in 1981. Here, Sansoni’s group carried out research in the area surrounding the so-called “Corno”, while Simões de Abreu was entrusted with the Great Rock (number 12), with over a thousand engravings. A few years later, in 1984, the Paspardo Rock Art team—led by Mila Simões de Abreu—began the systematic study of the Paspardo area, starting with Dos Sottolajolo, the first area to be catalogued with the help of computers. In the meantime, the research in Seradina was not completed, so the Portuguese scholar had to work on both sides of the valley, which is why the works on Rock 12 stretched for way longer than the operations on the Corno, reaching completion only in in 1987.

The development of critical positions and contrasts within the CCSP provoked a diaspora of researchers: in 1987 the Valcamonica and Lombardy Department of the CCSP—directed by Umberto Sansoni and Silvana Gavaldo—was born, while in 1988 Mila Simões de Abreu also distanced herself from the CCSP, founding with Angelo Eugenio Fossati the Archaeological Cooperative “The Footsteps of Man,” which would collaborate with Patrizia Frontini, Stefania Casini, and Andrea Arcà. The Department kept following the path traced by Anati, while the Cooperative broke away from it rather sharply, tying itself to the critical reflections by Raffaele de Marinis (a former collaborator of the CCSP), now focusing more on the analysis of the material culture reproduced on engravings, and working on an important redefinition of Anati’s chronology. The full publication of Seradina fell victim to these difficult years: Rock 12 was being re-checked and preserved by the Cooperative, while the Corno reliefs were still at CCSP. Only recently, in 2015, a revived collaboration made it possible to hypothesize a return to the project, with an article on the history of the studies on Rock 12. The collaboration between the Cooperative’s scholars and de Marinis led, in 1991, to the important exhibition Images of Iron Age Aristocracy in Valcamonica rock art, the catalog of which is full of insights for new reflections on the understanding of Iron Age engravings.

From 1988, the Cooperative, in continuity with previous research, kept exploring the large area of Paspardo, best known for its ancient topographical compositions and figures of great warriors; other important finds from this area were, in 1993, a Neolithic polished greenstone axe (about which a beautiful and complete summary was published in a 2007 volume) and, in 1992, its extraordinary cave paintings. Meanwhile, the Department fully mapped and surveyed the rock engravings in Sellero, which were published in 1987—the very same year in which the area was made into a Municipal Park, thanks to Tiziana Cittadini’s work. Then, the Valcamonica Department scholars moved on to Pià d’Ort, the first area to be published in its entirety (both by zones and individual rocks), in 1995: the volume opened a discussion on the comparison with the new theses of de Marinis on Iron Age chronology.

Archaeological excavations further expanded knowledge about the Valley: between 1980 and 1985, Francesco Fedele’s excavations at the castle in Breno uncovered an early Neolithic occupation (with pottery belonging to a local facies, the square-mouthed vases culture 3), frequentation in the Copper Age, and episodic settlements from the Bronze and Iron Ages to the Middle Ages (Fedele 1988). In 1988 Giancarlo Zerla, a tireless seeker of archaeological finds, discovered three Copper Age stelae in Asinino-Anvoia, on the Ossimo plateau: Francesco Fedele, sensing the potential of the area, suggested Zerla to explore it, thus having the opportunity to excavate an extraordinarily intact ceremonial site (Fedele 1990).

During the 1980s and 1990s there were many sensational Copper Age discoveries: after Ossimo, the ceremonial area of Pat, discovered in 1990, was also excavated by the Superintendence, under the direction of Raffaella Poggiani Keller, and was published in essays starting in 1999. In the early 1990s, Ausilio Priuli discovers other engraved areas in Berzo Demo (reported in 1984) and especially in the impervious area of Piancogno (published in 1993), which is characteristic for the prevalent use of graffito, for its engravings of warriors with ox-skin shields and halberd axes, and for interesting evidence from Roman times. Adding to the epigraphic collections are the studies of Maria Grazia Tibiletti Bruno (who analyzed the new Camunian inscriptions between 1990 and 1992, especially focusing on the alphabetaries), of Alessandro Morandi (also on the Camunian, published in1998 and 2004), and the corpus of Latin inscriptions by Alfredo Valvo (published in 1991). In 1989, Fossati, Simões de Abreu and Jaffe compiled a first synthesis of research history, and updated the bibliography of already published studies, thus opening a new path of research in a field that, until then, had been held in low regard.

1990 marked the start of the Department’s systematic study of the Campanine area (Cimbergo), which continued until 2000, with the latest discoveries made when the full publication of the area (which happened in 2009) was in preparation. In Campanine, alongside research on Chalcolithic plow figures, a Bronze Age chariot, and mighty warrior figures, Cristina Gastaldi and Federico Troletti focused their research on the engravings from the historic period, hitherto neglected. The area returned also rock paintings, similar to the ones identified in Paspardo. Moreover, in 1994, a photographic reconnaissance campaign and a preliminary catalog showed the richness of the historical rock heritage on the hill of Monticolo (Darfo), which would become the subject of Federico Troletti’s studies between 2013 and 2015. Alongside the BCSP journal, since 1993 the journals NAB (Notizie Archeologiche Bergomensi) and BEPAA (Bulletin d’Études Prehistoriques et Archeologiques Alpines) became an important reference for scholars. In these years, the Cooperative “Footsteps of Man” worked hard to organize conferences, aimed at updating the state of research and opening new perspectives in studies: I Camunni tra Storia e Preistoria (“The Camunni – History and Prehistory”, Breno, 1989), Sulle Tracce del Sacro (“On Sacredness’ Trail”, 1991), the first International Conference on Rock Archaeology (in 1992, and later published in the second volume of NAB), L’Europa, le Alpi, la Valcamonica – second International Conference on Rock Archaeology, Darfo Boario Terme (held in 1997 and later published in 2001, Milan).

1994 was the year of the great exhibition Le Pietre degli Dei (“The Stones of the Gods”), organized in Bergamo by Stefania Casini and dedicated to the Copper Age menhirs and stelae from Valcamonica and Valtellina—a crucial period in the history of the Alps, which has in the engraved boulders an exceptional “index fossil”. The exhibition’s catalog offered a complete panorama of the finds that occurred up to that time, which would later increase thanks to the findings of the new millennium. Between 1989 and 1991, the Superintendence entrusted the Cooperative with the realization of integral surveys of some of Naquane’s rocks—n. 1 (partial), 6, 11, 23, 32, 35, 50, 57, 60 (partially), 70, 73, 99—as part of a development project, initiated by Raffaele De Marinis and concluded by Raffaella Poggiani Keller, with the purpose of including illustrative panels next to the rocks and creating five itineraries inside the park. Reliefs of some of the statue-stelae (Ossimo 8, Borno 4, Borno 5, Borno 6, Ossimo 4, Ossimo 10—just to name the most important ones) were also carried out. In 1991, the Cooperative “The Footsteps of Man,” to commemorate sixty years of the first reporting abroad, created the traveling exhibition Sculpted in Time; finally, in 1996, following a clever intuition, they created “Tracce Online Rock Art Bulletin”—the first online bulletin dedicated to rock art, a virtual space where one could publish their work on rock art, but also a place for comparison and permanent updating.

The 2000s

Also during the last two decades, Valcamonica has not stopped giving back new exciting finds to scholars: for example, new monumental Copper Age compositions were found—unfortunately out of context—in Campolongo di Grevo, Foppe di Nadro, Paspardo (loc. La Bolp), Cevo, and Malegno. Moreover, excavations in Cemmo, implemented by the Superintendence of Antiquities since 2000, have revealed a Chalcolithic cult site of very long frequentation and complex composition, developing around the two main boulders. These acquisitions, together with new rock discoveries from Paspardo and Foppe di Nadro, enrich an already exceptional landscape in terms of evidence and contexts.

In the meantime, the increasingly pressing problems concerning the protection of engravings and the need to map surfaces imposed a systematic georeferencing of all engraved areas: it was carried out by the project “Monitoring and good practices for the protection of the heritage of the Unesco Site No. 94 – Arte Rupestre Della Valle Camonica,” promoted by a 2006 law. Dozens of researchers traced, georeferenced, noted conservation, photographed and compiled digital records for every single engraved rock that has been reported over the years: their immense work has been summarized in a 2013 publication, edited by Raffaella Poggiani Keller and Giuseppina Ruggiero.

But back to our story: while the summer campaigns continued in Paspardo, the Cooperative organized many important conferences, such as Le Pietre degli Dei (“The Stones of the Gods”, Brescia, 2004, in collaboration with the Archaeological Museum of Bergamo and the Catholic University of Brescia; NAB 12); Paspardo tra Castagni e Incisioni Rupestri (“Paspardo – Chestnut trees and rock engravings”, 2006, but published in 2007); and finally, together with the Italian Institute of Prehistory and Protohistory (IIPP), L’arte Preistorica in Italia (“Prehistoric Art in Italy”), held in 2007 in Trento and Valcamonica (proceedings published in the journal Preistoria Alpina no. 46, 2012).

In the same years, the Valcamonica Department opened a new research site in Lower Valcamonica (surrounding Pisogne and Piancamuno), which is particularly rich in the so-called “minor signs”—i.e., schematic art, cup-marks, figurations of historical age (such as dates or crosses), and engravings related to mining activity. These findings, disclosed in 2001, offered the cue to widen the analysis to the characteristics of the whole territory—both from the ethnographic and from the archaeological point of view. The Grevo area was published in 2004, focusing on the history of the area, its schematic art and the most recent testimonies; in this very area, in the summer of 2001, happened the discovery of the four fragments of menhir statues from Campolongo (studied by Alberto Marretta). In 2001 the Zurla site was started, which in three years brought to light numerous rocks with depictions of armed figures, circular figures with complex internal fields, and the only hammered example of the Epicoric alphabet. In 2004 research started in I Verdi, a small area with only a few rocks, and in 2005 researchers moved to Pagherina-Dos del Pater. The Department returned to Foppe for various rechecks and completions of the surveys carried out in the 1970s-80s, aiming at the publication of the full area, while campaigns also continued in Pagherina and Dos del Pater. After 2006, along with the work in Foppe, the CCSP team moved on to various locations between Foppe and Naquane (such as Boscatelle, since 2007, and Ronchi di Zir, 2011), while the results of explorations in Valsaviore were published in 2006. Two more large rocks with maps came to light in 2005, in Bedolina and Ronco Felappi (on the western slope of the Valley). Alberto Marretta and Serena Solano discovered other surfaces in the Loa area (in the municipality of Berzo Demo), densely engraved with inscriptions in Epicoric alphabet. Finally, in 2009, B.S. Hansen discovered, in the gorge of the creek called Re (Paspardo), a vertical wall with rock paintings, depicting horsemen and anthropomorphs from the Iron Age.

In the early 2000s, Moreover, the early 2000s marked a rapprochement between scholars from CCSP and those from the Cooperative “Footsteps of Man”, huwever respecting each other’s differences. So, the results of the campaigns in Paspardo, as well as other specialized articles and text reviews, started to be published again in BCSP. The years following 2005 saw a great flourishing of publications: Andrea Arcà’s study on Dos Cuì (2007); Marretta’s summaries on Foppe di Nadro (2004) and Campanine di Cimbergo (2007); the integral study of Campanine, edited by Umberto Sansoni and Silvana Gavaldo (2009); the synthesis of the research in the area of Paspardo, edited by Angelo Eugenio Fossati (2007); the publication of the Great Rock of Naquane, edited by Andrea Arcà (2013); the large catalog of the Copper Age exhibition, edited by Raffaele de Marinis (2013); the publication of the rocks from Berzo Demo (Marretta-Solano 2014); the first catalog volumes on Foppe di Nadro (2017-2019). These were just to mention the most important ones, in addition to many articles, essays and specific studies that attested to the great vitality of field research.

Of course, in the meantime the Valcamonica Symposiums continued; moreover, thanks to the revived collaboration between the two research schools, both the Santuarios conference (2016) and the prestigious IFRAO congress (2018) would be hosted in Valcamonica. The history of studies has also produced additional synthesis works—such as the proceedings of the meeting on the history of research held in Capo di Ponte in 2005 and the catalog about the historical exhibition on the centenary of the first reporting (both published in 2009). To conclude, it is impossible not to mention the creation of the National Museum of Prehistory in Capo di Ponte (MUPRE), opened on May 10, 2014, in which the engraved Copper Age boulders have found a proper location and in which it is finally possible to see the materials from the archaeological excavations carried out in the 20th century.