PLOUGHING – FIFTH MILLENNIUM BCE

The first human documented intervention at the site is the incision of the land with furrows, most probably caused by ploughing. The ruts were even, about 20cm deep and with a triangular profile, running in parallel lines whose path was conditioned by the morphology of the location.
This ploughing, perhaps for reasons of worship and which can thus be interpreted as some kind of ritual, was carried out at the end of the 5th millennium BCE, during the Late Neolithic period. The discovery of this date was a real game changer as it was far earlier than the middle of the following millennium, which had previously been thought to be the case.
This evidence may bring to mind the myth of the Argonauts; those 50 heroes who, led by the valiant Jason, undertook their adventurous voyage aboard the ship Argo; a voyage which would take them to unknown lands in search of the Golden Fleece. When Jason asked King Aeëtes for the Golden Fleece, the king agreed to give it to him, but only after he had ploughed a field to sow the teeth of a dragon killed by Cadmus, from which sprouted new warriors. From myth to reality: in Aosta the ploughed land was called on to nurture a solid breed of men.