The Etnean area and the Aegean world between the end of the 3rd and the first half of the 2nd millennium BC.: new data from Valcorrente at Belpasso (Catania)

The Etnean region comprises a large area that extends from the Ionian sea to the hinterland of Mt Etna and thus includes a mountainous landscape and the plain of Catania, one of the largest in Sicily. This area, between the second half of the 3rd and the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, was occupied by several small communities belonging to the Castelluccio culture that, although considered to be of Aegean origin, has been traditionally presented as the expression of a very closed farming society with almost no connections with the external world. Recent researches have changed this picture clarifying that coastal communities were in direct contacts with people from overseas and were responsible for the internal re-distribution of imports across the island. Following the recent discovery of an inland site at Valcorrente, on the south-west slope of the volcano, in this paper it will be argued that also in the Etnean region, as has been already demonstrated for the southern part of the island, some inland sites, due to the special function, experienced forms of direct contacts with Aegean people.