“The people who landed on Sicily’s shores from the tiny islands to the west weren’t the first to come, although their arrival can be dated with the artifacts and cave carvings we have found,” Vito told me. “The human experiment had advanced very far by that time, and they knew how to farm, herd animals, and turn emmer wheat and other grains into bread.
“Tool-making, like a blunt-headed maul, creating spear points and early harpoons made of deer antler, and building wattle-and-daub shelters were within the talents of an average person, but making cutting edges from flaking chert, or honing the point of a microlith from flint to be used as an arrowhead or needle was still not very common. Especially for a small island population isolated in the middle of a great sea, largely although not co
