Alesa Arconidea: dal “paesaggio mediterraneo” alle dinamiche storiche e culturali del territorio

This paper describes the results of a landscape archaeological research, focused on the ancient territory of Alesa, city of Hellenistic and Roman period located near the North coast of Sicily. The aim of the research is to analyze the problems of settlement and rural population of Alesa hinterland, and also to detect human activities and to perceive settlement strategies and resource exploitation tactics by the local communities in a long-term perspective (from prehistory to late-roman/early byzantine periods). The archaeological survey, based on an intensive archaeological exploration (the sampled area is wide about 20 Kmq), has allowed both the reconstruction of rural settlement of Alesa hinterland, and to make the comparisons between the archaeological data and historical-literary sources, first of all the Hellenistic epigraph known as Tabula Halaesina. The features of Alesa landscape described in the latter epigraph has allowed Emilio Sereni to coin the expression of «giardino mediterraneo».