About
Since the Neolithic period, people have lived in cave houses on this Italian hillside.
The city center of Matera is flanked by the hillside Sassi, a peasant neighborhood known for its array of cave dwellings. In fact, they are thought to be among the longest-inhabited on Earth: having been occupied since prehistoric times and continuing right up until today. Unfortunately for its residents, Matera was seen as an embarrassment to Italy in the 1950s. As the fascists pushed forward with modernizing the country, this region remained behind - struggling with a lack of efficient plumbing infrastructure and poverty and disease taking root. This ultimately resulted in a resettlement plan which evicted some of the Sassi di Matera's inhabitants from their primitive cave houses in the lower part of town; these properties were later set to be demolished using dynamite.
