Strategie d'insediamento nella Sicilia pre-protostorica. Un esempio dal sistema montuoso delle Madonie

The Madonie research project analyzes mobility strategies and the use of a mountainous territory by relating geomorphologic features, raw material sources and landscape to the prehistoric settlement. To that end an intensive and systematic survey of sample areas was planned. Areas were selected on geo-morphological, altimetric and archaeological criteria. The palaeoenvironmental investigation is based on the study of palynological sequence samples coming from wet areas of the Madonie territory and from archaeological deposits. Madonie Natural Park lies on the northern coast of Sicily, near Palermo, in the surrounding of the Greek colony of Himera. The Madonie survey is the next stage of a larger research project which investigated the hinterland of the Greek colony of Himera, carried out since the ’80 as a systematic and intensive survey of the territory of three main rivers valleys, Imera, Torto and San Leonardo valleys, with a chronological range from prehistory until the medieval period. Between the main topics of Madonie survey there are the investigation of first peopling of the island, the examination of differences in the settlement strategies between the last stage of Pleistocene and Holocene, the analysis of seasonality models related to hunters-gatherers and then to shepherds and of the origin and development of pastoralism.