ABSTRACT
Up to thirty years ago there was no evidence that man came to Sicily until the last great advance of the polar icecap and the Alpine glaciers in Europe was more than half over. This was approximately 30,000 years ago. The oldest known Sicilian flint tools from the rock shelter of Fontana Nuova (Marina di Ragusa) consisted of the sturdy blades, gravers, burins (pointed gravers) and scrapers that also characterize the opening phase of the Upper Palaeolithic in France (where the typological sequence used throughout Europe was developed).
