Great article, I'm envious of your trip. I loved Italy and it's been a while since I was there.

Personally I do think the legends of "trolls" are trace memories of our interactions with our cousins. I think, as the climate warmed and "pure strain" humans moved up from the south. The Neanderthals who were resistant or reluctant to "marry out" followed the retreat of the ice and moved North.

That the last holdouts may perhaps have been in Doggerland or the Baltics. But, that is just my personal feeling.

While I think analysis of "folk memory" always has to be loaded with doubt. I do think memories of events echo down to us.

The "wild men" you describe may be Neanderthals or it could also be a faint memory of the spread of agriculture in the early neolithic. Farmers moving up the river valleys and planting in the friable soils near the rivers. Encountering people who had lived in the great forests for tens of thousands of years.

A rehash, if you will, of the "Cain and Able" story found in the Bible. The faint memory of a change in lifeway.

It often pays to consider the folk tales of a culture. Once those stories were important cultural memories.

You might like my Archeotourist articles. I go to Mexico mostly. If you have some site you have written up I will publish it if you want. Warning though I have very few readers. :-(