L. Bernaḅ Brea, M. Cavalier - Meligunìs Lipàra VIII
Parte I Salina. Ricerche archeologiche (1989-1993), con appendici di J.L. Williams e S. Levi, M.C. Martinelli. pp. 1-190; Parte II di A. Pagliara, Fonti per la storia dell'arcipelago Eoliano in età greca, pp.1-129. Palermo 1995
The Neolithic hut of RiniceddaA large section of Meligunìs Lipàra Vol. III had been dedicated to the excavations conducted on the island of Salina in 1956, in the Bronze Age settlements of Serro dei Cianfi and La Portella.
For many years after these excavations, no significant finds, especially for the prehistoric period, were made in the island.
A strong revival of interest in the archaeology of the island has however taken place in recent years. It was prompted by a series of striking discoveries, following which new excavations were undertaken.
A stable settlement of people coming from Sicily had developed on the island of Salina since the onset of the middle Neolithic, contemporaneously with the first settlements of Castellaro Vecchio on the island of Lipari, in the final centuries of the fifth millennium BC.
The excavations conducted in 1989 revealed an oval hut recognizable in the excavation only due to the different compactness of the terrain. It was possible to identify its beaten earth floor on which were embedded shattered vases, fragments of obsidian, stone tablets, and so on.
An accumulation of stones right round the upper margin of its perimeter was undoubtedly all that remains of the straw roof that covered the hut. It is a very primitive type of habitation, of a kind known in southern Italy, but hitherto never found in Sicily and the Aeolian Isles.
Another settlement, somewhat later in date, was subsequently discovered (1990) on Serro Brigadiere, a crag on top of which the settlement of Santa Marina Salina is perched.
A group of huts was revealed by the excavation. They too are very primitive in type, dug into the ground and abutting onto a ridge of compact grey tufa. They were simple elongated pits with rounded corners, with floors of beaten earth. Sometimes their perimeter was completed by a scattering or row of broken stones which surrounded the upper edge of the pit; these stones undoubtedly formed part of the roofing of the huts.
These huts belonged to the Piano Quartara cultural phase (second half of the third millennium).
The pottery found on the site attests to the fact that this area was inhabited from the initial Aeneolithic or Copper Age (first half of the third millennium BC) and from the middle Aeneolithic (pottery of Piano Conte style, round about the middle of the third millennium).
The settlement continued until the following Capo Graziano cultural phase (onset of the Bronze Age).
At a slightly lower level a hut of the middle Bronze Age was built into the slope of the hill (Milazzese culture, 14th century BC).
A settlement of wooden huts on the steep ridge of the contrada, close to the Neolithic hut of Rinicedda, can be dated to the Capo Graziano cultural phase.
The second part of the volume is dedicated to the sources for the history of the Aeolian archipelago in the Greek period.
