The tholos huts are dry-stone buildings built by sheperds and peasants as shelters. They are similar to the structure of the Apulian trulli and the Sardinian nuraghi.
They were described for the first time in 1876 by Giovanni Chiarini from Chieti, but only in 1992 the scholar Edoardo Micati tried to take a complete census of the thousands of tholos spread all over the Maiella, Gran Sasso and Montagna dei Fiori areas.
Among the mentioned areas, the Maiella is the richest in huts (about 75% of the total figure) and you can find them as high as 1850 metres.
You can visit the most interesting groups of huts near Roccamorice where there are La Valletta, Colle della Civita and Giumentina Valley huts. The latter group shows one of the biggest tholos in all the Maiella area.