This archive collects solutions-journalism stories and milestones from Italy — covering environmental policy, public health, civic innovation, and more. Each entry highlights measurable progress and the people driving it.
Around 12,000 B.C.E., a young hunter-gatherer in what’s now northern Italy had a painful cavity in his back molar — and someone tried to fix it. Using a pointed flint tool, they scratched and levered inside the decay, leaving microscopic marks still visible 14,000 years later. It’s the oldest known attempt at treating a cavity.
Around 200,000 B.C.E., Neanderthals at a site in what is now central Italy heated birch bark to produce tar — and used it to bind stone tools to wooden handles. The evidence challenges long-held assumptions about Neanderthal intelligence and marks one of the earliest known acts of deliberate chemical transformation in human history.
