Palù di Livenza has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 27 June 2011 and it is now one of the most important prehistoric pile-dwelling sites of the Alps together with those in France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia.
The wetland of Palù di Livenza covers quite a large area belonging to the municipalities of Caneva, Polcenigo in the province of Pordenone. It is a wide natural basin surrounded by the Cansiglio-Cavallo massif westward, and the Longone and San Floriano hills eastward.
In the 1960s, while draining the backwaters of the area, ancient wooden structures came to surface together with a number of pottery fragments and stone utensils. The area discovered was a prehistoric cluster dating back to the mid-to-late Neolithic period (late 5000 BC–early 4000 BC).
Thanks to the discovery of some flint findings, archaeologists assert that the site was inhabited not only during the late Neolithic period - which is currently the most highly evidenced period as far as the cluster is concerned - but also during the Mesolithic (8000–4500 BC) and the Upper Palaeolithic (40,000–8,000 BC) periods.
Further findings demonstrate this area was frequented after the Eneolithic (3,000–2,300 BC) and during the final Bronze Age (1,200–1,000 BC) too.
This site was therefore inhabited over an extraordinary long period of time and further research will surely provide new and interesting information about prehistoric humans, their lives and their habits.
Archeological finds thus confirm that Palù di Livenza is one of the most important prehistoric sites in Friuli-Venezia Giulia and also one of the most interesting and ancient pile-dwelling sites in all of Northern Italy. Its extraordinary importance also resides in being one of the very few wet-areas of Italy where archaeological evidence and finds were discovered in good condition and in a significant quantity, despite the canalisation works and the soil modifications of this area over the centuries. The site represents a unique archaeological and palaeontological archive to be protected and put to good use.
