Among Sicily’s Earliest Footsteps

There is a stillness inside the Museum Gemmellaro in Palermo that sits heavy on the shoulders. Its pale corridors echo faintly, as though the island itself were inhaling in anticipation. And then, behind a tempered glass panel, she appears: the fossilised body of a woman who lived between fifteen and eighteen millennia ago. Scholars affectionately call her Nonna Tega, though there is nothing quaint about the power she radiates. Her form lies fully preserved by time’s careful hand - save for the missing phalanx of a little finger - a reminder that the earliest Sicilians endured a world far more brutal than today’s sunlit island of citrus groves and wooden fishing boats.

These ancient islanders bore jaws that told the tale of their lives: upper and lower mandibles meeting edge to edge, teeth perfectly aligned like a pair of pincers. This was the bite of necessity - the anatomy of people who tore raw meat from bone, who wrestled with sinew, who lived without the comfort of fire-softened meals. Survival shaped their faces long before culture shaped their stories.

When the Sea Became a Partner

Then, something remarkable happened. The strict utilitarian lines of the jaw began to soften, and the reason lay just beyond the mouth of their coastal caves. These prehistoric Sicilians discovered the sea not simply as a boundary, but as a banquet. Shellfish and crustaceans would have been the first gifts, easy enough to gather from the shallows. But it was fish - elusive, shimmering, quick - that changed them.

Early attempts to spear the darting shoals were more hope than success. Yet persistence, the virtue that has always defined island communities, eventually yielded a prize of extraordinary size. The first great fish to be successfully hunted was the tuna - creature of muscle, speed, and a scale that must have defied belief to those early hunters.

Giants of the Deep, Etched in Stone

In the Grotta del Genovese on the island of Levanzo, ancient artists left behind extraordinary graffiti. Among them is a massive silhouette unmistakably intended to be a tuna. Its size is emphasised by the figure drawn beside it: a sturdy bull. The message could not be clearer. For these prehistoric Sicilians, the tuna was not merely a fish - it was a titan, a worthy adversary, and an exceptional reward.

At that time, the seas surrounding Sicily swelled with enormous specimens, living out long natural lifespans before death claimed them. Imagine the astonishment of hauling such a creature ashore using nothing more than ingenuity and determination. The hooks were fashioned from deer antlers, baited with temptingly soft squid. The line itself was a length of braided vine. Primitive, yes, but brilliantly effective.

The First Cuts

Once a giant tuna was secured, the challenge shifted from catching to carving. Prehistoric communities devised a meticulous system, dividing the fish into thirty-five distinct cuts - a precursor to the detailed butchery that still echoes faintly through modern Sicilian fishing towns. Today the terminology has blurred, simplified, or fallen into disuse. But once, these divisions meant everything, guiding how each precious portion would be preserved, shared, or consumed.

The Net That Changed Everything

While Sicily’s earliest tuna hunters relied on hook, patience, and raw strength, the wider Mediterranean would later introduce another revolution: the barrier net. Thought to have originated in the Nile Valley around eight thousand years ago, this technique used twisted willow branches woven into a fence-like trap. When drawn toward shore, it gathered smaller fish in abundance. Its arrival signalled a shift in human diet and, astonishingly, in human anatomy as well.

As fish became more central to the diet of coastal peoples, the old pincer-like bite slowly disappeared. Softer textures, easier chewing, increased access to nutrients - all contributed to the quiet evolution visible in the bones of later populations. The sea had reshaped not just culture and cuisine, but the human body itself.

Tides That Still Shape Sicily

Standing today on a rocky shore near Trapani, watching modern fishermen ready their boats in the early blue of dawn, it’s hard not to feel the continuity. Tools have changed, boats have changed, even the size of the tuna has changed. Yet the relationship between Sicilians and the sea remains as profound as it was on the day someone first lowered an antler hook into the dark water.

To travel Sicily is to walk in the footsteps of those who discovered that the sea is more than a horizon - it is a partner, a provider, a storyteller. And somewhere within that ancient bond lies the origin of one of the Mediterranean’s greatest food traditions: the hunt for the mighty tuna, a tradition powerful enough to alter both the island’s history and the very bones of the people who called it home.

Photo by Ray Harrington on Unsplash