La mine of defense a Vieste has been considered for many years now a cornerstone of European mining archeology for the extraction of flint, both for its high antiquity (around 7000 years) and for the type of plant, which appears already highly evolved at the beginning of the process of neotilisation which affected the western Mediterranean between the 1981th and 1986th millennium BC. The mine, discovered in 50, has been the subject of systematic research since XNUMX, which has made it possible to explore and survey a considerable part of the upper floor of the structure, whose extension is currently around half a hectare. It is a mine of the so-called "chamber and pillar" type, with two superimposed floors, excavated in two distinct limestone layers containing flint nodules. The upper floor appears, today, as an extended horizontal cavity with a very low ceiling (about XNUMX cm), with spare rock pillars, filled with debris up to the ceiling, inside which corridors delimited by dry stone walls have been created. Along the corridors, ceramic vases were found, sometimes whole and with food remains inside, stone lamps and mining tools such as pickaxes and flint mallets for digging limestone. 
The presence of entire ceramic vases in their original position has led to the hypothesis that the mine was quickly abandoned following a seismic event, which subsequently closed the entrances permanently.
The Archaeological park is currently not open to visitors.
For further information, please refer to dedicated Sapiens episode, to the Book “Defensola: a flint mine from 7000 years ago” edited by Attilio Galiberti et al story of the discovery of the mine by Franco Ruggieri.
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