Evidence for Foreign Contacts in Sicilian and Southern Italian Hoards of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age

Italy with its major islands represents an area of strong interactions between the Mediterranean world and Europe throughout history, thanks to the peculiar geographical position of the peninsula. The metal finds, mostly from hoards, underline these contacts that flourished particularly in the period of the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. Razors, swords, trunnion axes, palstaves, flesh-hooks and fibulae chart a course that connects the Mediterranean with Western Europe. The presence of these materials in the Sicilian Late Bronze Age – Early Iron Age outlines the role of the island in a multidirectional network of maritime traffic. Late Bronze Age southern Italian hoards and particularly those ones from Apulia show connections with the Aegean and the Balkans. Axes, swords, knives and hammers from these hoards reveal the existence of intensive trade and cultural interactions across the Adriatic and Ionian Seas in the late phases of prehistory. Meaningful evidence is provided by the presence of moulds for the production of artefacts of Aegean typology from the settlement of Roca Vecchia (Lecce).