Pontrelli Quarry

Seen from above, they look like tiny dots, but they are more than 20,000 well-preserved dinosaur footprints left by Earth’s giants 85 million years ago.

Pontrelli Quarry is a disused deposit in Altamura and among the most important sites with dinosaur footprints in the world. The footprints are spread over an area of nearly 15,000 square yards, imprinted in limestone rocks that originated from mud accumulated during the Upper Cretaceous.

The study of the trace fossils identified two herbivorous genera: hadrosaurs and nodosaurs, but new types of footprints, Apulosauripus federicianus and another still being determined, were detected.