Industrial archaeology, weaknesses and opportunities for the Sicilian rural landscape

Industrial Archeology (AI) is a relatively recent subject, its goal is the preservation of the memory of ancient work activities. The need of such preservation sprang from technological evolution, so rapid nowadays, that makes production processes, tools and objects, obsolete: working devices become suddenly useless and so they are abandoned. This is true also for the buildings destined to work, such as factories, infrastructures and related areas; that is the most interesting aspect of AI, because it allowes the recovery of important resources. In Sicily IA has a very particular role and meaning. In fact, although this region is very far from the European heart, where the Industrial Revolution had the most outstanding development, there were a number of activities related to the place (from tuna fishing and conservation to sulphur mining, from salt production to clay processing). In the paper, attention is focused on some examples to show how it is possible to en-courage the development of the depressed rural areas with the IA refurbishment. This is a very relevant theme if you take into account that it is often mentioned in the business program of the regional authority.