Il mare dentro l'isola: un approccio territoriale allo studio delle risorse legate al mare nel Neolitico e nell'età del Bronzo in Sicilia

Prehistoric settlement strategies reflect a palimpsest of environmental, economic, and cultural variables. On islands, these strategies are influenced in a peculiar way by the sea, its presence either facilitating contact or posing an obstacle for communities, who choose to move towards the coast or away from it leaning towards the interior - its influence always significant but variable over time. This paper reviews and discusses the different settlement patterns in Sicily during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, as known from the existing literature, through a regional-scale survey in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment, comparing the settlement data with the distribution and the exploitation of sea-related resources. Our investigation takes advantage of three-dimensional analysis tools that are widely used to carry out spatial analyses, applied on a digital model of the terrain with a ground resolution of ten meters. Specifically, the work focuses on visibility analysis (viewshed analysis) and accessibility across the landscape (Least Cost Analysis) of the most representative sites of the different phases of Sicilian prehistory. The aim of the analysis is to verify possible connections between the hinterland and the coast, taking into account their different geomorphological characteristics. Alongside the territorial analysis, we examine a series of variables directly or indirectly linked to the sea in the periods under consideration, specifically raw materials (obsidian), resources linked to the sea (marine molluscs, marine ichthyofauna), as well as distinctive ceramic productions from areas beyond the sea, such as Capo Graziano pottery from the Aeolian Islands and pottery from the Aegean region. Starting from this comparison, the paper discusses how and to what extent the presence of the sea permeated the existence of prehistoric communities in the Neolithic and in the Bronze Age, beyond the coastal area and towards the island’s interior.