The first stage in the inhabitation of the Lazio region goes back to the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic period. Man-made articles typically involved the working of stones, from which single or double-sided slivers were chipped. Objects in witìich the entire surface of the slivers was worked are calied amygdalae, because of their almond-like shape.
At the present stage of research no stone materials belonging to this period appear to have been found. Therefore, on the basis of recent discoveries it can be said that the first cvidence of human activity in the Sabatine area comes from the shores of the lakes.The first signitìcant fmd from the Neolithic period, i.e. from the 6th millennium BC, is the village located at La Marmotta, to the north-east of the headland on which present-day Anguillara stands.

The ancient village stood on the shores of the Lake but now it has been found 350 metres from the shoreline and 8 metres below the surface. It is an isolated settlement built on wooden stakes, with its perimeter defined by a stockade ofwooden piles.After a period of inertia, or maybe abandonment, the vi!lage was reoccupied between the Old and Middle Bronze Age, from the 7th to the Sth centuries BC, at the same time as other sites located aiong the shore which correspond to the prese~TIt-day Vigna Grande, Vigna di Valle, Vicarello and Acquarelle, which also go back to the beginning of Appennine civilisation.
During this period we can see a definite and systematic inhabitation of the lake area.

At La Marmotta there is an extensive, monumental construction ofwooden piles, a kind of “land reclamation” carried out along the far edge of a flat area, beyond which the lake bed shelves steeply. A second structure consists of an enormous mass of stone, perhaps a burial mound, standing above the land reclamation. The second period of inhabitation of the site shows very intensive activity in which a society of individuals was at work, a rea! centre with already advanced and organised structures. The discovery of a dug-out canoe has to be seen as evidence that a part of the village was given over to boat-building and therefore involved in work of a seriously commercial and industrial! nature.
Other archaeological evidence in the Lake, at Vigna Grande, Vigna di Valle, Acquarelle and Vicarello, are located at depths of between fi-~ ve and twenty metres. Originally these settlements would certainly not have stood so far from the shore but at the water’s edge; this shows that over a period of thousands of years the rise and fai! of the water leve! has submerged these settlements and that the lake has grown in size.

Another interesting find in 1974 was the lake-village at Vicarello, 300 metres from the present shoreline and submerged at a depth of between three and eleven metres. From aerial photographs it is possible to make out the line of the shore which at that period curved outwards to form a headland. The lake-village consisted of a massive “stockade” discovered a certain distance from the shore which at the period of the quasi-conurbation must have functioned as the retaining wall of an embankment built of rubble, clay and beaten earth. Thick vertical piies driven into the bed of the lake were attached to long, slender horizontal ones. In the inner area nearer the shore traces of burning have been found on the piles and the stones. Three hundred metres from the shore at a depth of six metres three “heaps” of stones and rocks have been found which, on the basis of comparison with other contemporary villages in Lazio, are under
The material collected from inside the village consists of large vases and everyday crockery There are plenty of bone fragments belonging to pigs, sheep and cows, many of which show clear signs of burning.
There are two other lake-villages of similar structure: Vigna di Valle and Vigna Grande. Both are situated about 60-70 metres from the shore and built like the Vicarello settlement. Finds include almost intact ceramic-meta! utensi!s, glasses, amphorae, bowls - contemporary with those from Vicarello. At another lakeside site in the locality of Le Acquarelle, a large fragment of the skull of Bosprimigenius has been recovered, similar in form to the one discovered on Lake Garda and now in the Pigorini Museum in Rome.
From the type of materials discovered, a picture can be formed of the kind of life led by the first inhabitants of the Sabatine area. From !eading a nomadic existence, whose main activity was hunting and fishing, they had evolved by the end of the Early Bronze Age into herders and farmers, raising stock and tilling the soi!. Farm implements are always hewn out of stone but become more refined and functional for each activity
More recently, in the course of the 1990s, some archaeological strata were identified in the Rigostano necropolis at Trevignano as possibly belonging to a Late Bronze Age settlement (1200-1000 BC).The area containing the archaeological remains is the man-made ledge at the foot of the slope of the ancient necropolis. On a ledge of about 30 sq.m anima! remains and impasto potsherds mixed together with lots of cinders were discovered in the brown c!ay soil.
In 1894 research by Cozza and Pasqui led to the discovery of fortitìed terracing at the top of Monte Rocca Romana, dating from the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. A similar find came to light on nearby Monte Calvi.The two discoveries have supported the stili vague hypothesis of a link between the two inhabited areas, whereby the origina! Bronze Age settlement located on Rocca Romana cou!d later have expanded to nearby Monte Calvi.Therefore the so-ca!ied fortress defending the quasi-conurbation would be identified as the Rocca which, centuries !ater, was also used by the Orsini.
Finally, it should be noted that in the Bronze Age the Sabatine area is exclusively settled by lakeside dwellers and on!y at the end of that period (Late BronzeAge) are there any hill settlements, as confirmed by discoveries at Monte S.Angelo and other parts of the lake districts of Etruria.