Filicudi - The prehistoric village of Montagnola (early Bronze Age)
The Bronze Age settlement of Montagnola di Capo Graziano seen from the South-EastBeginning in 1952, and then in a renewed campaign in the 1960s, Luigi Bernabò Brea, in collaboration with Madeleine Cavalier, conducted the excavations of the main Bronze Age village on the island of Filicudi.
The Montagnola di Capo Graziano (rising to an altitude of 135 m above sea level) has extremely rugged, uneven and precipitous slopes; only on the eastern side is the slope less steep and is now terraced. The largest nucleus of the prehistoric village was concentrated on a little plateau measuring roughly 100 x 30 m at an altitude of c.100 m above sea level. But it is likely that the huts stretched right to the top of the Montagnola.
The village was developed in the cultural period that takes its name from the Capo Graziano on which it is located, that is, in the 16th to 15th century BC. It arose following the abandonment of a previous settlement, which had been situated down in the undefended coastal plain round the harbour (Piano del Porto), probably following the threat of hostile incursions. It continued to flourish also in the following Milazzese cultural phase (14th – 13th century BC), at the end of which it was completely destroyed and abandoned.
Bibliography:
- L. Bernabò Brea M. Cavalier, Meligunìs Lipàra, Vol VI. Filicudi. Insediamenti dell'età del bronzo con appendici di Rosa Maria Albanese Procelli, Maria Clara Martinelli. Pietro Villari, John L. Williams, Palermo 1991, pp.1-352.
