IN THE DEPTHS OFF ITALY, DIVERS MADE A DIS-covery that could rewrite history. They found a series of ancient, enigmatic artifacts made from volcanic glass, potentially linked to a Neolithic shipwreck—a revelation that could be, as one expert put it in language not usually found in the domain of scientific research, “mind-blowing.”
In October, divers from the underwater unit of the Naples Police identified the submerged remains, which are made from a material called obsidian, near Capri—an island in the Bay of Naples overlooked by the volcano Mount Vesuvius on the mainland.
The pieces of obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed by the rapid cooling of lava with a particular chemical composition, lie on the seabed at a depth of 100 to 130
