Antiche pietre : la cultura dei dolmen della preistoria della Sicilia sud-orientale

Introduction: Timothy Darvill

This book came about due to the author's experience with regards to a very little discussed topic in Sicily: the existence of Dolmens in the land. The archaeological proofs which the author has been able to collect show that at least one of these dolmens in particular, that of ‘Cava dei Servi’, was used as a burial place between the end of the third and first half of second millennium B.C. The first chapter concerns the origin of these enormous European monuments that according to the Australian archaeologist V. Gordon Childe, were built by mythical megalithic missionaries. The perfection of the absolute dating system (C-14), has proved that the oldest megalithic tombs originated in central-north Europe around 4500 B.C. The author therefore describes the principal characteristics of the dolmens (and the menhirs and cromlechs) of Brittany and United Kingdom and reflects on the Mediterranean dolmens (Spain, Balearic Island, Sardinia, Apulia). The chapter ends with his discovery of Sicily dolmens. Subsequently, the second chapter revolves around the discovery of Sicilian dolmens: ‘Monte Bubbonia’, ‘Cava dei Servi’, ‘Cava Lazzaro’ and ‘Avola’. Every dolmen differs from the other, but they all are classified by the European typology. In ‘Cava dei Servi’ the author was able to find a few earthenware fragments dated back to the early Bronze Age and anthropological remains which confirmed the burial purpose of the artifact. The dolmen of ‘Avola’, as found by the geological analysis conducted for the aims of this book is a natural construction on which the human hand interfered. In the third chapter, the author speculates on what could explain the disappearance of the great Maltese civilization which lived between 4000 B.C. and 2200 B.C., that of the people who built the megalithic temples of Tarxien. The archaeologist Themistocles Zammit attributed the disappearance of the "Culture" to an epidemic. In the late 50’s, J.D.Evans ascribed that an Apulian invasion occurred: this by the analogy of the Maltese dolmens with Apulians. The discovery of Sicilian dolmens, similar to the ones mentioned above, would disprove this theory.