Il riparo di Vallone Inferno (Madonie, Sicilia): attività umana, ambiente e paesaggio negli ultimi settemila anni

Abstract

This volume presents the results of fifteen years of an interdisciplinary archeological research carried out in a mountainous territory in the central part of the Mediterranean basin. A surface survey, led by Vincenza Forgia for her PhD research project between 2006 and 2008 (with Dr. Andreu Ollé and Dr. Josep Maria Vergès as cotutors of the PhD), was conducted on sample areas of the Madonie Mountain Range, on the northern part of Sicily (Italy), as part of a major research project on the Himera river valley. The latter, led by Cattedra di Topografia Antica (Prof. Oscar Belvedere), was devoted to the study of the chora of the ancient colony of Himera and interested in all the periods (prehistoric and historic) and in the investigation of the relationship between the lowlands, the mountainous area and its natural resources. One of the sample areas selected for the new surface survey was located between the Imera River valley and the highlands with an altitudinal range spanning from 500 to 1000 meters above the sea level. In this sample area, in the territory of Scillato, we were able to identify the Vallone Inferno rock shelter with its impressive archaeological and paleo environmental deposit. Since the first inspection, it was immediately clear the importance of the place, because the Inferno stream had cutted the archeological deposit, showing a section of several meters with different layers alternating coarse to fine beds, the latter rich in organic matter and archaeological finds (pottery, lithics, fauna). The site has been immediately selected as the reference site, in order to give an absolute chronological framework to the results of the survey on the same mountainous area. The excavation started in 2008, in collaboration and agreement with the Soprintendenza ai BB.CC.AA. of Palermo (responsible for the area, Dr. Rosa Maria Cucco). The first campaigns were devoted to the geoarchaeological description of the stratigraphy by Prof. Diego Angelucci and to the definition of the absolute chronology of the whole sequence. Synchronous results from the excavation and the surface survey led the team to plan a new research project, named HUMAnS (Human Upland Mobility in Ancient Sicily), in order to complete the paleoenvironmental and archaeological investigation. Test pits were opened on the highlands, along a natural corridor reconstructed by spatial analyses and in coincidence with very specific places as pastoral pens (as Fonte Castellaro or Zottafonda) or dry small lakes (as Piano Cervi). The book is conceived like a synthesis of the entire research, with a focus on the results from the excavation of the upper archaeological layers, covering a period spanning from the Early Middle Ages to the Middle Neolithic when, after a long period of absence since the Mesolithic, human groups returned to the mountains. Our results are then contextualized on a wider territorial area in order to interpret the settlement strategies adopted on a diachronic perspective. After the introduction to the local topography and to the state of the art in the archaeological research and the methodology of excavation, two subchapters are devoted to the description of the geological background of the area and to the geoarchaeological description of the stratigraphy of the deposit. This description, with the identification of the stratigraphic units, is at the base of the excavation strategy, complicated from cyclical phenomena of deposition and erosion of anthropogenic and natural origin. The core of the book is the presentation of the whole archaeological record, with chapters divided with a chronological criterion describing structures, pottery finds, lithic finds, personnel ornaments and macro fauna. The interdisciplinary approach, as described in the methodological chapter, led us to collect the whole information coming from the excavation, involving experts of different disciplines, like paleo