Cetona

A medieval village located at the foot of the Cetona mountain, the narrow streets and alleys that wind a spiral in the village around the Fortress. Interesting to visit is the prehistoric settlement of Belverde, older than 40,000 years. The Museum of Prehistory of Mount Cetona documents the various stages of humans in the territory around the Monte Cetona, from the Paleolithic to the end of the Bronze Age. The archaeological record is preceded by an exhibition which illustrates the evolution of the landscape on the basis of geological and paleontological evidence. The events begin prehistoric land in the Middle Paleolithic: the Neanderthals inhabited caves of the territory of Cetona, leaving as a trace of its passage chipped stone tools and the remains of hunted animals. After a sporadic attendance during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, there was an intense population during the second millennium BC, especially in Belverde, on the eastern flank of the mountain, where man erected inhabited huts  in the rock shelters. Of this phase there is a rich archaeological record that constitutes the core of the museum.

The tour ends with a space reserved for temporary exhibitions. Closely related to the museum is the Archaeological Park Belverde: you can visit some of the cavity openings in travertine, adequately lit and equipped like the cave of San Francesco, the caverns of the Noce and the Poggetto. The park area is characterized by the presence of plant associations that show little sign of human intervention: a kind of oasis in which historical, archaeological and naturalistic elements are intimately linked.