The Sicilians ( Sicilian : Siciliani ), or Sicilian people , are a Romance -speaking European ethnic group who are indigenous to the island of Sicily , the largest island in the Mediterranean , as well as the largest and most populous of the autonomous regions of Italy .
190-481: The Sicilian people are indigenous to the island of Sicily, which was first populated beginning in the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. According to the famous Italian historian Carlo Denina , the origin of the first inhabitants of Sicily is no less obscure than that of the first Italians; however, there is no doubt that a large part of these early individuals traveled to Sicily from Southern Italy —others from
380-691: A UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005. The site was mainly excavated between 1895 and 1910 by the Italian archeologist, Paolo Orsi , although most of the tombs had already been looted long before his time. Items found within the tombs of Pantalica, some now on display at the Archaeology Museum in Syracuse, were the characteristic red-burnished pottery vessels, and metal objects, including weaponry (small knives and daggers) and clothing, such as bronze fibulae (brooches) and rings, which were placed with
570-405: A cistern ( cisterna ), an absolute necessity in an area devoid of water. The cistern was capped with a lime-mortared barrel vault or dome that in many cases, supported the floor of the house. The roofs are constructed in two skins: an inner skin of limestone voussoirs , capped by a closing stone, and an outer skin of limestone slabs that are slightly tilted outwardly, ensuring that the structure
760-483: A drystone hut , a neolithic long house or a simple hut made of mud, stones, wood, palm leaves or grass. Their main methods of transportation were horseback, donkeys and chariots . Evidence of pet wildcats , cirneco dogs and children's toys have been discovered in archaeological digs, especially in cemetery tombs . Their diet was a typical Mediterranean diet , including unique food varieties such as Gaglioppo , Acitana and Diamante citron , while in modern times
950-428: A nomadic lifestyle. In addition, even a large area of land could not support many people without being actively farmed - food was difficult to come by and so groups were prevented from growing too large by the amount of food they could gather. Like contemporary hunter-gatherers, Paleolithic humans enjoyed an abundance of leisure time unparalleled in both Neolithic farming societies and modern industrial societies. At
1140-620: A Passover Seder was conducted in Sicily (in Palermo), held by a Milanese Rabbi. The Jewish community in Sicily is led in part by Rabbi Stefano Di Mauro, a Sicilian American descendant of Sicilian neofiti . He opened a small synagogue in 2008, but he has not yet set up a full-time Jewish congregation in Sicily. Services are held weekly on Shabbat and the High Holy Days . Also, Shavei Israel has expressed interest in helping to facilitate
1330-622: A city on the eastern coast of Sicily, became home to Italy's first modern mosque. Also known as the Omar Mosque, it was financed by Libya . Sicilian Jewish community There is a legend that the Jews were first brought to Sicily as captive slaves in the 1st century after the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans. However, it is generally presumed that Sicily's Jewish population was ceded before
1520-511: A collection of cemeteries with rock-cut chamber tombs. Dating from the 13th to the 7th centuries BC., recent estimates suggest a figure of just under 4,000 tombs. They extend around the flanks of a large promontory located at the junction of the Anapo river with its tributary, the Calcinara , about 23 km (14 mi) northwest of Syracuse . Together with the city of Syracuse, Pantalica was listed as
1710-690: A common "Elymian" tribal identity/basis after settling down in Sicily. When the Elymians migrated to Sicily is unknown, however scholars of antiquity considered them to be the second oldest inhabitants, while the Sicanians, thought to be the oldest inhabitants of Sicily by scholars of antiquity, were speculated to also be a pre-Indo-European tribe , who migrated via boat from the Xúquer river basin in Castellón , Cuenca , Valencia and Alicante . Before
1900-660: A continuous cline of variation that mirrors geography. Genetically, Sicilians cluster the closest to other South Italians , and especially to Calabrians . Other studies have also demonstrated that the population of Sicily is genetically very similar to that of Malta , and to Greek speaking groups from the Ionian Islands , the Aegean Islands , Crete and the Peloponnese while the rest of mainland Greece appears as slightly differentiated, by clustering with
2090-823: A decision to administratively and politically merged the two separate Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, which ended up forming the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1816. In 1861, however, Sicily became part of the Kingdom of Italy as a result of the Risorgimento . Prior to the Risorgimento, the Two Sicilies were conquered by the Kingdom of Sardinia during the Expedition of the Thousand (led by general Giuseppe Garibaldi ) in 1860, and subsequently brought under
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#17327661527032280-708: A distinct province or administrative region under Germanic control, although it did retain a certain amount of autonomy. The Gothic War took place between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantine Empire (with its capital-city based at Constantinople , modern Istanbul ), and during the reign of Justinian I , Sicily was brought back under Greco-Roman rule under the military expeditions of Byzantine generals Flavius Belisarius and Narses , resulting in Byzantine-Greek language and religion being embraced by
2470-442: A dozen or two dozen, but never for the occupancy of more than a single rural family. Depending on the area, the building material used could be either hard limestone or calcareous tufa . Traditionally trulli were built using dry stone masonry, i.e. without any mortar or cement. This style of construction also is prevalent in the surrounding countryside where most of the fields are separated by dry-stone walls . In Alberobello,
2660-592: A geographical map drawn by Giovanni Antonio Rizzi Zannoni in 1808, one may see the selva of Alberobello and, in the midst of it, a clearing with a settlement pattern of scattered houses that bears a striking resemblance to the present-day urban pattern. In an 1897 photograph of the rione Monti (the district of the Mounts), the trulli are far less densely packed than today, being surrounded by enclosed gardens. The urban trulli still extant in Alberobello date from
2850-694: A group of early humans, frequently called Homo heidelbergensis , came to Europe from Africa and eventually evolved into Homo neanderthalensis ( Neanderthals ). In the Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthals were present in the region now occupied by Poland. Both Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis became extinct by the start of the Upper Paleolithic. Descended from Homo sapiens , the anatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens emerged in eastern Africa c. 300,000 BP, left Africa around 50,000 BP, and expanded throughout
3040-793: A herd of animals at a waterhole so as to stun one of them. There are no indications of hafting , and some artifacts are far too large for that. Thus, a thrown hand axe would not usually have penetrated deeply enough to cause very serious injuries. Nevertheless, it could have been an effective weapon for defense against predators. Choppers and scrapers were likely used for skinning and butchering scavenged animals and sharp-ended sticks were often obtained for digging up edible roots. Presumably, early humans used wooden spears as early as 5 million years ago to hunt small animals, much as their relatives, chimpanzees , have been observed to do in Senegal , Africa. Lower Paleolithic humans constructed shelters, such as
3230-505: A need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply. Raymond C. Kelly speculates that the relative peacefulness of Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies resulted from a low population density, cooperative relationships between groups such as reciprocal exchange of commodities and collaboration on hunting expeditions, and because the invention of projectile weapons such as throwing spears provided less incentive for war, because they increased
3420-540: A number of ways by modern archaeologists. The earliest explanation, by the prehistorian Abbe Breuil , interpreted the paintings as a form of magic designed to ensure a successful hunt. However, this hypothesis fails to explain the existence of animals such as saber-toothed cats and lions , which were not hunted for food, and the existence of half-human, half-animal beings in cave paintings. The anthropologist David Lewis-Williams has suggested that Paleolithic cave paintings were indications of shamanistic practices, because
3610-593: A particular ceramic style, is the Castelluccio culture which dates back to the Ancient Bronze Age (2000 B.C. approximately), and is seen as sort of a "prehistoric proto-civilization", located between Noto and Siracusa . The discovery of a prehistoric village in Castelluccio di Noto, next to the remains of prehistoric circular huts, led to finds of Ceramic glass decorated with brown lines on
3800-579: A people not belonging to the Castelluccio Culture." The Sicelian polytheistic worship of the ancient and native chthonic , animistic -cult deities associated with geysers known as the Palici , as well as the worship of the volcano-fire god by the name of Adranos , were also worshiped throughout Sicily by the Elymians and Sicanians. Their (Palici) centre of worship was originally based on three small lakes that emitted sulphurous vapors in
3990-797: A prominent jurist of the Maliki school of Sunni Islamic Law . Under the rule of Frederick II , all Muslims were expelled from the Island following a rebellion of local Saracens who wished to keep their local independence in Western Sicily but were not allowed to due to Pope Gregory IX 's demands. Any remaining Muslim was eventually expelled by the Spanish inquisition . In more recent years, many immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries like Pakistan , Albania , Bangladesh , Morocco , Egypt , and Tunisia have arrived on Sicily. In 1980, Catania,
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#17327661527034180-531: A pronounced hierarchy and a somewhat formal division of labor ) and may have engaged in endemic warfare . Some argue that there was no formal leadership during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Like contemporary egalitarian hunter-gatherers such as the Mbuti pygmies, societies may have made decisions by communal consensus decision making rather than by appointing permanent rulers such as chiefs and monarchs . Nor
4370-466: A rural building type. With its thick walls and its inability to form multi-storey structures, it is an inefficient use of ground space and consequently ill-suited for high density settlement. Being constructed of small stones, however, it has a flexibility and adaptability of form making the design most helpful in tight urban situations. In the countryside, trullo domes were built singly or in groups of up to five, or sometimes, in large farmyard clusters of
4560-449: A separate room. Along with its exterior wall, a trullo's interior room and vault intrados often were rendered with lime plaster and whitewashed for protection against drafts. The trulli used as dwellings all have an open fireplace complete with a flue (hidden in the masonry) and a stone-built chimney stack (rising high above the roof). Because of their design, trulli are difficult to heat: the walls are very thick and warm air will rise up
4750-516: A single house became prohibitive. The style of construction is specific to the Itria Valley , in the Murge area of the Italian region of Apulia . Trulli may be found in and out of Alberobello , and in the areas around Locorotondo , Fasano , Ostuni , Cisternino , Martina Franca , and Ceglie Messapica . The Murgia is a karst plateau. Winter rains drain through the soil into fissures in
4940-527: A trullo roof would cost about three million lira (about 1,500 euros) and in 2009, the cost rose up to 15,000 euros. In late twentieth century the Monti district in Alberobello was largely a derelict area when Antonella Guido and Dino Barnaba began buying up a few dozen abandoned trulli, installed modern kitchenettes in them with a view to renting them out as mini apartments for the night for less than rooms cost at local hotels. They even painted good-luck symbols on
5130-434: A yellow-reddish background, and tri-color with the use of white. The weapons used in the days of Castelluccio culture were green stone and basalt axes and, in the most recent settlements, bronze axes, and frequently carved bones, considered idols similar to those of Malta , and of Troy II and III . Burials were made in rounded tombs carved into the rock, with doors with relief carving of spiral symbols and motifs that evoke
5320-453: Is a general glacial excursion, termed a "glacial". Glacials are separated by "interglacials". During a glacial, the glacier experiences minor advances and retreats. The minor excursion is a "stadial"; times between stadials are "interstadials". Each glacial advance tied up huge volumes of water in continental ice sheets 1,500–3,000 m (4,900–9,800 ft ) deep, resulting in temporary sea level drops of 100 m (330 ft) or more over
5510-571: Is also mentioned in the New Testament in the Acts of the Apostles , 28:11–13, in which Saint Paul briefly visits Sicily for three days before leaving the Island. It is believed he was the first Christian to ever set foot in Sicily. Sicilian Muslims During the period of Muslim rule , many Sicilians converted to Islam . Many Islamic scholars were born on the island, including Al-Maziri ,
5700-412: Is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers ; however, due to rapid decomposition, these have not survived to any great degree. About 50,000 years ago, a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts occurred. In Africa, bone artifacts and
5890-638: Is currently not a recognised language in Italy. In Sicily, there are three metropolitan areas : Overall, there are fifteen cities and towns with a population above 50,000 people, these are: The most common Sicilian names are Giuseppe , Maria and Salvatore . The most common Sicilian surnames are Russo , Messina and Lombardo . In 2008, the number of Sicilians abroad was well over 1 million. The countries in which they are most numerous on this date are: United States, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, France and Canada. The population of
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6080-562: Is described as "a stable indigenous language of Italy" by Ethnologue and is recognized as a minority language by UNESCO . It has also been identified as a language by the Sicilian Region. Even so, Italian continues to be the sole official language recognized by the Italian Republic and predominates in the public arena, being used as everyday language in the daily lives of many Sicilians. The Siculo-Arabic dialect
6270-410: Is in north-west Sicily, around Trapani , Palermo and Agrigento where Norman Y-DNA is the most common, with 8% to 20% of the lineages belonging to haplogroup I1. Ancient and medieval Greek genetic paternal legacy is estimated at 37% in Sicily. Sicilians are of European genetic origin, with modern genetic profiles that are closely similar to people who lived in the region of Magna Graecia during
6460-583: Is more pronounced in Lower Paleolithic humans such as Homo erectus than in modern humans, who are less polygynous than other primates, which suggests that Lower Paleolithic humans had a largely polygynous lifestyle, because species that have the most pronounced sexual dimorphism tend more likely to be polygynous. Human societies from the Paleolithic to the early Neolithic farming tribes lived without states and organized governments. For most of
6650-543: Is no evidence of hominins in America, Australia, or almost anywhere in Oceania during this time period. Fates of these early colonists, and their relationships to modern humans, are still subject to debate. According to current archaeological and genetic models, there were at least two notable expansion events subsequent to peopling of Eurasia c. 2,000,000 – c. 1,500,000 BP. Around 500,000 BP
6840-465: Is the name of the local agricultural dry stone hut. Trullo has replaced the local term casedda (pl. casedde ) (Italian casetta , pl. casette ), which was used by locals in the Murgia to call this type of house. A stonemason specializing in the building of trulli is a trullisto or trullaro in Italian. The corresponding dialectal term is caseddaro ( caseddari in
7030-467: Is watertight. The roof stones may be taken away without compromising the stability of the rest of the building. The trullo may take on a circular or a square plan. The circular trullo is mostly a temporary shelter for animals and their fodder, or, for the peasant himself. The trullo that is part of a grouping of three, four, or five follows a squarish plan. It may serve as a kitchen, bedroom, animal shelter, store room for food or tools, oven, or cistern, as
7220-506: The !Kung San who live similarly to their Paleolithic predecessors. The economy of a typical Paleolithic society was a hunter-gatherer economy. Humans hunted wild animals for meat and gathered food, firewood, and materials for their tools, clothes, or shelters. The population density was very low, around only 0.4 inhabitants per square kilometre (1/sq mi). This was most likely due to low body fat, infanticide , high levels of physical activity among women, late weaning of infants, and
7410-489: The Altai Mountains and Indonesia, were radiocarbon dated to c. 30,000 – c. 40,000 BP and c. 17,000 BP respectively. For the duration of the Paleolithic, human populations remained low, especially outside the equatorial region. The entire population of Europe between 16,000 and 11,000 BP likely averaged some 30,000 individuals, and between 40,000 and 16,000 BP, it
7600-722: The Arctic Circle . By the end of the Upper Paleolithic Age humans had crossed Beringia and expanded throughout the Americas continents. The term " Palaeolithic " was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek: παλαιός , palaios , "old"; and λίθος , lithos , "stone", meaning "old age of the stone" or "Old Stone Age ". The Paleolithic overlaps with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time. Both ended 12,000 years ago although
7790-783: The Calabrian Salami , which is also produced in Sicily, and sometimes used to make spicy 'Nduja spreadable paste/sauce , is a popular type of salami sold in Brazil and the Anglosphere . All 3 tribes also specialised in building megalithic single-chambered dolmen tombs , a tradition which dates back to the Neolithic. "An important archaeological site, located in Southeast Sicily, is the Necropolis of Pantalica ,
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7980-474: The Classical antiquity period, these people were a mix of Italic Roman and Greek genetic ancestry. Sicilians closely resemble mainland Italians and Greeks genetically. It is a misconception that Sicilians are of primarily Moorish or otherwise African origin, but this has been entirely disproven by genetic analysis of Sicilian genomes . The falsified myth that Sicilian DNA was of Moorish origin
8170-641: The Fall of the Western Roman Empire ) in 476 and completely to the Ostrogothic conquest of Sicily by Theodoric the Great which began in 488; although the Goths were Germanic , Theodoric sought to revive Roman culture and government and allowed freedom of religion. In contrast to the prior Carthaginian, Syracusan (Dorian) and Roman Empires which ruled Sicily in the past, Sicily did not serve as
8360-582: The Hadza people and the Aboriginal Australians suggest that the sexual division of labor in the Paleolithic was relatively flexible. Men may have participated in gathering plants, firewood and insects, and women may have procured small game animals for consumption and assisted men in driving herds of large game animals (such as woolly mammoths and deer) off cliffs. Additionally, recent research by anthropologist and archaeologist Steven Kuhn from
8550-703: The Hebrew Bible ), the Phoenician moon goddess of fertility and prosperity Astarte (with her Roman equivalent being Venus ), the Punic goddess Tanit , and the weather & war god Baal (which later evolved into the Carthaginian god Baal Hammon ), as well as the Carthaginian chief god Baal Hammon, also had centres of cultic-worship throughout Sicily. The river Anapus was viewed as
8740-755: The Islands of Greece , and the coasts of Iberia and Western Europe . The aboriginal inhabitants of Sicily, long absorbed into the population, were tribes known to the ancient Greek writers as the Elymians , the Sicanians , and the Sicels , the last being an Indo-European -speaking people of possible Italic affiliation, who migrated from the Italian mainland (likely from the Amalfi Coast or Calabria via
8930-510: The Isthmus of Panama , bringing a nearly complete end to South America's distinctive marsupial fauna. The formation of the isthmus had major consequences on global temperatures, because warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off, and the cold Arctic and Antarctic waters lowered temperatures in the now-isolated Atlantic Ocean. Most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect
9120-551: The Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans , while under Byzantine , Saracen and Norman rule, there were Byzantine Greeks , Arabs and Normans . From the late medieval period into the modern era, Aragonese , Spaniards and French ruled over and left a minor impact on the island, while Albanians settled and formed communities which still exist today known as the Arbereshe . About five million people live in Sicily, making it
9310-651: The Mediterranean . The five main MtDNA haplogroups present in Sicily are haplogroups H , K , X , W and U , which are also the five most commonly found MtDNA-haplogroups in Europe and the Caucasus . The Norman Kingdom of Sicily was created in 1130, with Palermo as its capital, 70 years after the initial Norman invasion and 40 after the conquest of the last town, Noto in 1091, and would last until 1198. Today, it
9500-645: The Milazzo Culture of the Aeolian Islands , and with the Apennine culture of mainland southern Italy. In Sicily's earlier prehistory , there is also evidence of trade with the Capsian and Iberomaurusian mesolithic cultures from Tunisia , with some lithic stone sites attested in certain parts of the island. Another archaeological site, originally identified by Paolo Orsi on the basis of
9690-534: The Mousterian and the Aterian industries. Lower Paleolithic humans used a variety of stone tools, including hand axes and choppers. Although they appear to have used hand axes often, there is disagreement about their use. Interpretations range from cutting and chopping tools, to digging implements, to flaking cores, to the use in traps, and as a purely ritual significance, perhaps in courting behavior . William H. Calvin has suggested that some hand axes could have served as "killer frisbees " meant to be thrown at
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#17327661527039880-418: The Murge area of the Italian region of Apulia . Trulli were generally constructed as temporary field shelters and storehouses or as permanent dwellings by small proprietors or agricultural labourers. In the town of Alberobello , in the province of Bari, whole districts contain dense concentrations of trulli. The golden age of trulli was the nineteenth century, especially its final decades, which were marked by
10070-448: The Old Stone Age (from Ancient Greek παλαιός ( palaiós ) 'old' and λίθος ( líthos ) 'stone'), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools , and which represents almost the entire period of human prehistoric technology . It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins , c. 3.3 million years ago, to
10260-479: The Oldowan , began around 2.6 million years ago. It produced tools such as choppers , burins , and stitching awls . It was completely replaced around 250,000 years ago by the more complex Acheulean industry, which was first conceived by Homo ergaster around 1.8–1.65 million years ago. The Acheulean implements completely vanish from the archaeological record around 100,000 years ago and were replaced by more complex Middle Paleolithic tool kits such as
10450-418: The Palagonian plains, and as a result these twin brothers were associated with geysers and the underworld . There was also a shrine to the Palici in Palacia, where people could subject themselves or others to tests of reliability through divine judgement; passing meant that an oath could be trusted. The mythological lineage of the Palici is uncertain. According to Macrobius , the nymph Thalia gave birth to
10640-513: The Pleistocene epoch, our ancestors relied on simple food processing techniques such as roasting . The Upper Palaeolithic saw the emergence of boiling, an advance in food processing technology which rendered plant foods more digestible, decreased their toxicity, and maximised their nutritional value. Thermally altered rock (heated stones) are easily identifiable in the archaeological record. Stone-boiling and pit-baking were common techniques which involved heating large pebbles then transferring
10830-418: The Ruwenzori Range in east and central Africa were larger. Glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethiopia and to the west in the Atlas Mountains . In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one. The Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered the North American northwest; the Laurentide covered the east. The Fenno-Scandian ice sheet covered northern Europe, including Great Britain; the Alpine ice sheet covered
11020-442: The Spanish era ended when Charles V from the House of Bourbon was crowned king. For the better part of the next century-and-a-half, Sicily was in personal union with the other Southern Italian Kingdom of Naples , with the official residence located in Naples , under the Bourbon dynasty . After the Napoleonic Wars , King Ferdinand I , who had just recently been restored back to the throneship of Southern Italy in 1815, made
11210-410: The Strait of Messina ) during the second millennium BC , after whom the island was named. The Elymian tribes have been speculated to be a Indo-European people who migrated to Sicily from either Central Anatolia , Southern-Coastal Anatolia , Calabria, or one of the Aegean Islands , or perhaps were a collection of native migratory maritime-based tribes from all previously mentioned regions, and formed
11400-416: The United States in the early 20th century. Forms of Siculish are also to be found in other Sicilian immigrant communities of English-speaking countries , namely Canada and Australia. A surprising similarity can often be found between these forms, through either coincidence, trans-national movements of Sicilian immigrants, or more likely, through the logical adaptation of English using linguistic norms from
11590-588: The Western Roman Empire being too preoccupied with war in Gaul , when the Vandals & Alans started invading Sicily in 440, the Romans could not respond. Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II sent a failed expeditionary force to deal with them in 441, which ended in a Vandal-Alan counter-victory. However, they soon lost these newly acquired possessions, except for one toehold in Lilybaeum , to Odoacer (an Arian Christian Barbarian statesman & general of possible East Germanic & Hunnic descent, and client king under Zeno whose reign over Italy marked
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#173276615270311780-444: The Zakat alms-giving tax Muslims had to pay. Many Jews immigrated to Sicily during Muslim rule, but left after the Normans arrived. In the 11th century, the mainland southern Italian powers were hiring Norman mercenaries , who were Christian descendants of the Vikings ; it was the Normans under Roger I (of the Hauteville dynasty ) who conquered Sicily from the Muslims over a period of thirty years until finally controlling
11970-503: The fourth most populated region in Italy . However, in the first century after the Italian unification , Sicily had one of the most negative net migration rates among the regions of Italy because of millions of people moving to the Italian mainland and countries like Germany , Sweden , Belgium , the United States , Canada , Australia , Brazil , Argentina , the United Kingdom , France , New Zealand , Singapore and South Africa . Many Sicilian communities, including those formed by
12160-452: The war in 242 BC, and with the death of Hiero II , all of Sicily except Syracuse was in Roman hands, becoming Rome's first province outside of the Italian peninsula. For the next 600 years, Sicily would be a province of the Roman Republic and later Empire . Prior to Roman rule, there were three native Elymian towns by the names of Segesta , Eryx and Entella , as well as several Siculian towns called Agyrion , Kale Akte (founded by
12350-399: The 13th century BC, have been found in Lipari . The prehistoric Thapsos culture , associated with the Sicani, shows noticeable influences from Mycenaean Greece . The type of burial found in the necropolis of the Thapsos culture, is characterized by large rock-cut chamber tombs, and often of tholos-type that some scholars believe to be of Mycenaean derivation, while others believe it to be
12540-686: The 5 Early Bronze Age Sicilian males had Steppe-associated Y-haplogroup R1b1a1a2a1a2 (R-P312). Two of these were Y-haplogroup R1b1a1a2a1a2a1 (Z195) which today is largely restricted to Iberia and has been hypothesized to have originated there 2500–2000 BCE. Today in Sicily most people are bilingual and speak both Italian and Sicilian , a distinct Romance language . Many Sicilian words are of Greek origin, while smaller numbers of other loan words are from Norman , Arabic , Catalan , Occitan , Spanish and other languages. Other dialects of Sicilian, or those very closely related to it, are also spoken in southern Calabria , Salento and Salerno . Sicilian
12730-408: The 8th century BC. Initially, this was restricted to the eastern and southern parts of the island. As the Greek and Phoenician communities grew more populous and more powerful, the Sicels and Sicanians were pushed further into the centre of the island. The independent Phoenician colonial settlements were eventually absorbed by Carthage during the 6th century BC. By the 3rd century BC, Syracuse
12920-538: The 9th century. Besides Sicily, the Theme or province of Sicily also included the adjacent region of Calabria in Mainland Italy. The capital city of Byzantine Sicily was Syracuse . The province was looked after by the imperial governor known as a Praetor , and was militarily protected under a general by the title of Dux . Sicily itself was divided into many districts known as a Turma . The Byzantine Exarch of Ravennan Italy named Theophylact , between 702 and 709, originally came from Sicily. After he got promoted into
13110-421: The Aghlabids to aid him in his rebellion against the imperial governor of Sicily in 826 AD. A similar situation happened a century prior, when the imperial governor of Sicily (Sergios), had declared a Byzantine official from Constantinople by the name of Basil Onomagoulos ( regnal name Tiberius ) as rival emperor, when false news reached Sicily that Constantinople had fallen to the Umayyads . When Emperor Leo
13300-459: The Alps. Scattered domes stretched across Siberia and the Arctic shelf. The northern seas were frozen. During the late Upper Paleolithic (Latest Pleistocene) c. 18,000 BP, the Beringia land bridge between Asia and North America was blocked by ice, which may have prevented early Paleo-Indians such as the Clovis culture from directly crossing Beringia to reach the Americas. According to Mark Lynas (through collected data),
13490-432: The Carthaginians and the Romans." While his army was being transported by ship to mainland Italy, Pyrrhus' navy was destroyed by the Carthaginians at the Battle of the Strait of Messina , with 98 warships sunk or disabled out of 110. After Pyrrhus of Epirus landed on Mainland Italy, his Roman opponents had mastered up a large army under Roman consul Manius Curius Dentatus , while he was still Tyrant of Sicily. After Pyrrhus
13680-554: The Castelluccio sites of Paternò , Adrano and Biancavilla , whose graves differ in making due to the hard basaltic terrain and also for the utilization of the lava caves as chamber tombs. In the area around Ragusa , there have been found evidences of mining among the ancient residents of Castelluccio; tunnels excavated by the use of basalt bats allowed the extraction and production of highly sought flints . Some dolmens , dated back to this same period, with sole funeral function, are found in different parts of Sicily and attributable to
13870-755: The Diaspora without including those in the United States is 629,114 individuals. In the United States, the Sicilian-Americans are a large subset of Americans whose ancestors came from Sicily. This group is perhaps the largest part of the Sicilian diaspora. The entire autochthonous population of Malta is of Sicilian origin, but the Maltese generally do not consider themselves Sicilian due to centuries of cultural and geographical separation, and
14060-589: The Exarchate in 709. Theophylact might have also been the Strategos of Sicily from 700 to 710. The Strategos of Sicily was also able to exercise some control over the autonomous duchies of Naples , Gaeta and Amalfi , depending on the local political situation or faction at the time. The Aghlabid invasions were in part caused by the Byzantine-Sicilian military commander Euphemius , who invited
14250-435: The Exarchate, Theophylact marched from Sicily to Rome for unknown reasons, a decision which angered the local Roman soldiers living there, however the newly elected Pope John VI , was able to calm them down. While Theophylact was still Exarch, Byzantine Emperor Justinian II seized all the leading citizens and officials of Ravenna at a local banquet, and dragged them abroad a ship to Constantinople. He sentenced all but one of
14440-583: The Greek blacksmith God Hephaestus , at his forge in Sicily, underneath Mount Etna, or perhaps on one of the nearby Aeolian Islands. The Aeolian Islands, off the coast of Northwestern Sicily, were themselves named after the mythological king and "keeper of the heavy winds" known as Aeolus . In his Hymn to Artemis , Cyrene poet Callimachus states that the Cyclopes on the Aeolian island of Lipari , working "at
14630-812: The Island between 830 and 831. After a revolt was suppressed, the Fatimid Caliph Al-Mansur Billah appointed a member of the Kalbid dynasty, Al-Hasan ibn Ali al-Kalbi , as First Emir of Sicily. The Kalbids ruled Sicily from 948 to 1053. Al-Mu'izz ibn Badis , fourth ruler of the Zirid Sanhaja dynasty in North Africa, attempted to annex the island for the Zirids, but his attempts failed. The new Arab rulers initiated land reforms , which in turn increased productivity and encouraged
14820-571: The Lower Paleolithic ( c. 1.9 million years ago) or at the latest in the early Middle Paleolithic ( c. 250,000 years ago). Some scientists have hypothesized that hominins began cooking food to defrost frozen meat, which would help ensure their survival in cold regions. Archaeologists cite morphological shifts in cranial anatomy as evidence for emergence of cooking and food processing technologies. These morphological changes include decreases in molar and jaw size, thinner tooth enamel , and decrease in gut volume. During much of
15010-837: The Lower Paleolithic, human societies were possibly more hierarchical than their Middle and Upper Paleolithic descendants, and probably were not grouped into bands , though during the end of the Lower Paleolithic, the latest populations of the hominin Homo erectus may have begun living in small-scale (possibly egalitarian) bands similar to both Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies and modern hunter-gatherers. Middle Paleolithic societies, unlike Lower Paleolithic and early Neolithic ones, consisted of bands that ranged from 20–30 or 25–100 members and were usually nomadic. These bands were formed by several families. Bands sometimes joined together into larger "macrobands" for activities such as acquiring mates and celebrations or where resources were abundant. By
15200-563: The Mediterranean Sea, such as Coa de sa Multa ( c. 300,000 BP), has also indicated that both Middle and Upper Paleolithic humans used rafts to travel over large bodies of water (i.e. the Mediterranean Sea) for the purpose of colonizing other bodies of land. By around 200,000 BP, Middle Paleolithic stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool-making technique known as the prepared-core technique , which
15390-406: The Middle Paleolithic because trade between bands would have helped ensure their survival by allowing them to exchange resources and commodities such as raw materials during times of relative scarcity (i.e. famine, drought). Like in modern hunter-gatherer societies, individuals in Paleolithic societies may have been subordinate to the band as a whole. Both Neanderthals and modern humans took care of
15580-601: The Neanderthals hunted large game animals mostly by ambushing them and attacking them with handheld weapons such as thrusting spears rather than attacking them from a distance with projectiles. During the Upper Paleolithic , further inventions were made, such as the net ( c. 22,000 or c. 29,000 BP) bolas , the spear thrower ( c. 30,000 BP), the bow and arrow ( c. 25,000 or c. 30,000 BP) and
15770-550: The Neapolitan King Charles III – hailed as an Enlightenment King, issued a proclamation containing 37 paragraphs, in which Jews for the first time were formally invited to return to Sicily. However, the effort was generally unsuccessful. The Sicilian Jewish community still has several active members and has made a limited recovery in recent years. In the year 2005, for the first time since the Expulsion,
15960-417: The Neolithic. Upper Paleolithic cultures were probably able to time the migration of game animals such as wild horses and deer. This ability allowed humans to become efficient hunters and to exploit a wide variety of game animals. Recent research indicates that the Neanderthals timed their hunts and the migrations of game animals long before the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. The social organization of
16150-499: The Neolithic. The river Salsu was the territorial boundary between the Sicels and Sicanians. They wore basic clothing made of wool , plant fibre , papyrus , esparto grass , animal skins , palm leaves , leather and fur , and created everyday tools , as well as weapons , using metal forging , woodworking and pottery . They typically lived in a nuclear family unit, with some extended family members as well, usually within
16340-641: The Paleolithic Age went through a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures. By c. 50,000 – c. 40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia . By c. 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe . By c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by c. 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia , above
16530-531: The Pleistocene started 2.6 million years ago, 700,000 years after the Paleolithic's start. This epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies. During the preceding Pliocene , continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250 km (160 mi ) from their present locations to positions only 70 km (43 mi) from their current location. South America became linked to North America through
16720-533: The Pleistocene's overall climate could be characterized as a continuous El Niño with trade winds in the south Pacific weakening or heading east, warm air rising near Peru , warm water spreading from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific, and other El Niño markers. The Paleolithic is often held to finish at the end of the ice age (the end of the Pleistocene epoch), and Earth's climate became warmer. This may have caused or contributed to
16910-485: The Ravennan captives to death, the exception being Archbishop Felix , who was permanently blinded instead. This was due to a recent rebellion which Ravenna took part in, in 695. Justinian II later sacked Ravenna, weakening the Exarchate in charge of it. Theophylact was not a victim of the catastrophe, but was the first Exarch to experience a weakened Ravenna. Theophylact possibly moved back to Sicily after he retired from
17100-766: The Roman Empire was falling apart, a Germanic tribe known as the Vandals along with a Scythian tribe originating from the European Steppe known as the Alans took over Sicily for a relatively brief period beginning in 440 AD under the rule of their king Geiseric , forming the Kingdom of the Vandals . The Vandals and Alans gained a monopoly on the Mediterranean grain trade during their monarchical reign, with all grain taxes being monitored by them. Due to
17290-715: The Sicanians lived in the easternmost part of the Iberian peninsula. The name 'Sicanus' has been asserted to have a possible link to the modern river known in Valencian as the Xúquer and in Castilian as the Júcar. The Beaker was introduced in Sicily from Sardinia and spread mainly in the north-west and south-west of the island. In the northwest and in the Palermo kept almost intact its cultural and social characteristics, while in
17480-576: The Sicel leader Ducetius ), Enna and Pantalica , and one Sicanian town known as Thapsos . ( Greek : Θάψος) Sometime after Carthage conquered most of Sicily except for the Southeast which was still controlled by Syracuse, Pyrrhus of Epirus , the Molossian king of Epirus , was installed as King/Tyrant of Sicily from 278 to 275 BC, even capturing the native Elymian mountain-city of Eryx , which
17670-483: The Sicilian city-states had started becoming hostile towards him, due to him trying to force Sicily into becoming a martial state , Pyrrhus made his decision to depart from the island and dethrone himself, leaving Syracuse and Carthage in charge of the island again. As his ship left the island, he turned and, foreshadowing the Punic Wars , said to his companions: "What a wrestling ground we are leaving, my friends, for
17860-645: The Sicilian language. There are two main historical ethno-linguistic minorities in Sicily, the Lombards of Sicily and the Arbëreshë : Historically, Sicily has been home to many religions, including Islam , Native religions , Judaism , Classical Paganism , Carthaginian religions , and Byzantine Orthodoxy , the coexistence of which has been historically seen as an ideal example of religious multiculturalism . Most Sicilians today are baptized as Catholic . Catholicism and Latinization in Sicily originated from
18050-513: The Syrian sent an administrative official named Paul to Sicily, the people and army of Syracuse surrendered Basil and his rebels up to him, leading to the beheading of Basil, while the former governor Sergios was able to escape to the parts of Mainland Italy controlled by the Lombards . Another rebellion took place between the years 781–793, when the aristocratic governor of Sicily, Elpidius ,
18240-728: The Tyrant Hiero I of Syracuse , was the Battle of Cumae , where the combined navies of Syracuse and Cumae defeated an Etruscan force , resulting in significant territorial loses for the Etruscans. The constant warfare between Ancient Carthage and the Greek city-states eventually opened the door to an emerging third power . In the 3rd century BC, the Messanan Crisis , caused by Mamertine mercenaries from Campania , when
18430-492: The University of Arizona is argued to support that this division of labor did not exist prior to the Upper Paleolithic and was invented relatively recently in human pre-history. Sexual division of labor may have been developed to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently. Possibly there was approximate parity between men and women during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, and that period may have been
18620-403: The aboriginal peoples of differing ethnolinguistic origins ( Sicani , Siculi and Elymians ), Bruttians , Morgetes , Oenotrians , Phoenicians and Carthaginians , Ancient Greeks ( Magna Graecia ), Mamertines , Romans and Jews during the ancient and classical periods . In the early medieval era, Sicily experienced the brief rule of Germanic Vandals and Iranic Alans during
18810-410: The adoption of agriculture because women in farming societies typically have more pregnancies and are expected to do more demanding work than women in hunter-gatherer societies. Like most modern hunter-gatherer societies, Paleolithic and Mesolithic groups probably followed a largely ambilineal approach. At the same time, depending on the society, the residence could be virilocal, uxorilocal, and sometimes
19000-475: The ancient Doric-Greek revolutionary scientist, inventor and mathematician Archimedes who anticipated modern calculus , and analysis by applying methods of infinitesimals and exhaustion to rigorously derive and prove the range of geometric theorems , and invented the innovative Archimedean screw , compound pulleys , and defensive war machines to protect his native town of Syracuse from invasions, were both born, grew up in, lived and died in Sicily. As
19190-431: The anvils of Hephaestus ", make the bows and arrows used by Apollo and Artemis . The Hesiodic Latin poet Ovid names three Cyclopes "Brontes, Steropes and Acmonides" working as forgers inside Sicilian caves. Besides Demeter (the Greek goddess of agriculture and law ), and Persephone (the Greek personified goddess of vegetation ), The Phoenician bull god Moloch (a significant deity also mentioned in
19380-519: The area of Alberobello is referred to mostly as selva ("forest") and occasionally, as a land from which grazing animals were excluded. Evidence is lacking as to the existence of dwellings in the area prior to the seventeenth century. A Plan of the Territory of Mottala drawn by Donato Gallerano in 1704 reveals the existence of a nucleus of trulli in the midst of a large wood, making up the initial settlement of Arbore bello ("beautiful tree"). In
19570-479: The beginning of the period. Climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. Ice sheets grew on Antarctica . The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by an abrupt shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Ocean beds. Mid-latitude glaciation probably began before
19760-426: The case may be. In Alberobello, groupings did not exceed two trulli , as evidenced by nineteenth-century notarial deeds. In Alberobello, atop the cone of a trullo, there is normally a hand-worked sandstone pinnacle ( pinnacolo ), that may be one of many designs: disk, ball, cone, bowl, polyhedron, or a combination thereof, that is supposed to be the signature of the stonemason who built the trullo. Additionally,
19950-529: The city-states of Messina ( Carthaginian-owned ) and Syracuse ( Dorian-owned ) were being constantly raided and pillaged by Mamertines , during the period (282–240 BC) when Central, Western and Northeast Sicily were put under Carthaginian rule, motivated the intervention of the Roman Republic into Sicilian affairs, and led to the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage . By the end of
20140-428: The cone may have a symbol painted on it (as shown in the picture of the trulli in Alberobello.) Such symbols may include Christian symbols such as a simple cross , a cross on a heart pierced by an arrow (representing Santa Maria Addolorata ("Our Lady of Sorrows"), a circle divided into four quarters with the letters S, C, S, D in them (for Sanctus Christus and Sanctus Dominus according to one source, but more likely,
20330-501: The continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africa's collision with Asia created the Mediterranean, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean . During the Pleistocene , the continents were essentially at their modern positions; the tectonic plates on which they sit have probably moved at most 100 km (62 mi) from each other since
20520-692: The damage done to the attacker and decreased the relative amount of territory attackers could gain. However, other sources claim that most Paleolithic groups may have been larger, more complex, sedentary and warlike than most contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, due to occupying more resource-abundant areas than most modern hunter-gatherers who have been pushed into more marginal habitats by agricultural societies. Anthropologists have typically assumed that in Paleolithic societies, women were responsible for gathering wild plants and firewood, and men were responsible for hunting and scavenging dead animals. However, analogies to existent hunter-gatherer societies such as
20710-461: The deceased in the tombs. Most of the tombs contained between one and seven individuals of all ages and both sexes. Many tombs were evidently re-opened periodically for more burials. The average human life span at this time was probably around 30 years of age, although the size of the prehistoric population is hard to estimate from the available data, but might have been around 1000 people." Nuragic ceramic remains , (from Sardinia ), carbon dated to
20900-612: The descendants of the Sicilian migrants, are all over the world. It is estimated that the number of people of Sicilian descent in the world is more than six million. The most famous community is represented by the Sicilian Americans . Like the other parts of Southern Italy, immigration to the island is relatively low compared to other regions of Italy because workers tend to head to Northern Italy instead, in search of better employment and industrial opportunities. The most recent ISTAT figures show around 175,000 immigrants out of
21090-578: The destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem . Rabbi Akiva visited the city of Syracuse during one of his trips abroad. Judaism in Sicily was the first monotheistic religion to appear on the Island. The Jewish Sicilian community remained until the Aragonese rulers' Queen Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon , expelled them in the year 1493 with the Alhambra Decree . On 3 February 1740,
21280-480: The development of wine growing. The Italian term trullo (from the Greek word τρούλος , cupola) refers to a house whose internal space is covered by a dry stone corbelled or keystone vault . Trullo is an Italianized form of the dialectal term, truddu , used in a specific area of the Salentine peninsula (i.e. Lizzaio, Maruggio, and Avetrana, in other words, outside the Murgia dei Trulli proper), where it
21470-529: The divine twins while living underneath the Earth. They were most likely either the sons of the native fire god Adranos, or, as Polish historian "Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak" suggests, the Palici may derive from the old Proto-Indo-European mytheme of the divine twins . Mount Etna is named after the mythological Sicilian nymph called Aetna , who might have been the possible mother to the Palici twins. Mount Etna
21660-555: The earliest Paleolithic ( Lower Paleolithic ) societies remains largely unknown to scientists, though Lower Paleolithic hominins such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus are likely to have had more complex social structures than chimpanzee societies. Late Oldowan/Early Acheulean humans such as Homo ergaster / Homo erectus may have been the first people to invent central campsites or home bases and incorporate them into their foraging and hunting strategies like contemporary hunter-gatherers, possibly as early as 1.7 million years ago; however,
21850-543: The earliest solid evidence for the existence of home bases or central campsites (hearths and shelters) among humans only dates back to 500,000 years ago. Similarly, scientists disagree whether Lower Paleolithic humans were largely monogamous or polygynous . In particular, the Provisional model suggests that bipedalism arose in pre-Paleolithic australopithecine societies as an adaptation to monogamous lifestyles; however, other researchers note that sexual dimorphism
22040-426: The eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After having undergone a process of densification in the first decades of the twentieth century, the trulli settlements began to be deserted during the second half of the twentieth century. The rural trulli, on cheaper land, ceased to be built when the cost of labour began to rise in the twentieth century. The sheer expense of handling the hundreds of tons necessary for
22230-537: The elderly members of their societies during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Some sources claim that most Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were possibly fundamentally egalitarian and may have rarely or never engaged in organized violence between groups (i.e. war). Some Upper Paleolithic societies in resource-rich environments (such as societies in Sungir , in what is now Russia) may have had more complex and hierarchical organization (such as tribes with
22420-519: The end of the Pleistocene , c. 11,650 cal BP . The Paleolithic Age in Europe preceded the Mesolithic Age , although the date of the transition varies geographically by several thousand years. During the Paleolithic Age, hominins grouped together in small societies such as bands and subsisted by gathering plants, fishing, and hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic Age
22610-480: The end of the Paleolithic era ( c. 10,000 BP), people began to settle down into permanent locations, and began to rely on agriculture for sustenance in many locations. Much evidence exists that humans took part in long-distance trade between bands for rare commodities (such as ochre , which was often used for religious purposes such as ritual ) and raw materials, as early as 120,000 years ago in Middle Paleolithic. Inter-band trade may have appeared during
22800-794: The end of the Paleolithic, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic, people began to produce works of art such as cave paintings , rock art and jewellery and began to engage in religious behavior such as burials and rituals. At the beginning of the Paleolithic, hominins were found primarily in eastern Africa, east of the Great Rift Valley . Most known hominin fossils dating earlier than one million years before present are found in this area, particularly in Kenya , Tanzania , and Ethiopia . By c. 2,000,000 – c. 1,500,000 BP, groups of hominins began leaving Africa, settling southern Europe and Asia. The South Caucasus
22990-680: The end of the Pleistocene caused the mammoths' habitat to shrink, resulting in a drop in population. The small populations were then hunted out by Paleolithic humans. The global warming that occurred during the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene may have made it easier for humans to reach mammoth habitats that were previously frozen and inaccessible. Small populations of woolly mammoths survived on isolated Arctic islands, Saint Paul Island and Wrangel Island , until c. 3700 BP and c. 1700 BP respectively. The Wrangel Island population became extinct around
23180-430: The end of the epoch. The global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas . The Pleistocene climate was characterized by repeated glacial cycles during which continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places. Four major glacial events have been identified, as well as many minor intervening events. A major event
23370-627: The entire island by 1091 as the County of Sicily . In 1130, Roger II founded the Norman Kingdom of Sicily as an independent state with its own Parliament , language, schooling , army and currency, while the Sicilian culture evolved distinct traditions, clothing, linguistic changes, cuisine and customs not found in mainland Italy . A great number of families from northern Italy began settling in Sicily during this time, with some of their descendants forming distinct communities that survive to
23560-580: The entire surface of the Earth. During interglacial times, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions. The effects of glaciation were global. Antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap. There were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania . The decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya , Mount Kilimanjaro , and
23750-403: The extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna , although it is also possible that the late Pleistocene extinctions were (at least in part) caused by other factors such as disease and overhunting by humans. New research suggests that the extinction of the woolly mammoth may have been caused by the combined effect of climatic change and human hunting. Scientists suggest that climate change during
23940-439: The fact that their native language evolved from Siculo-Arabic instead of Italo-Dalmatian like the modern Sicilian language . Several studies involving whole genome analysis of mainland Italians and Sicilians have found that samples from Northern Italy , Southern Italy and Sicily belong to their own unique/distinct separate clusters, while a genetic gap is filled by an intermediate Central Italian cluster, creating
24130-400: The figurines as representations of goddesses , pornographic imagery, apotropaic amulets used for sympathetic magic, and even as self-portraits of women themselves. R. Dale Guthrie has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings, but also a variety of lower-quality art and figurines, and he identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists. He also points out that
24320-468: The fire. The inhabitants simply leave the doors open during the day to keep the interior dry, and live more outdoors than in. In trulli that were used as stables, the troughs the animals fed from may still be seen. Owing to the concentration of houses, trulli have few openings except for their doorway and a small aperture provided in the roof cone for ventilation, this coupled with the extremely high thermal inertia makes them warmer in winter and cooler in
24510-474: The first art appear in the archaeological record. The first evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa . Archaeologists classify artifacts of the last 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points , engraving tools, sharp knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools. Humankind gradually evolved from early members of
24700-408: The first sonnet , whose invention is attributed to Giacomo da Lentini himself. Sicilian was also the official language of the Kingdom of Sicily from 1300 to 1543. Prior to the 20th century, large numbers of Sicilian people spoke only Sicilian as their mother tongue, with little or no fluent knowledge of Italian. Today, although not officially recognized by the Italian Republic, the Sicilian language
24890-513: The first users of stone tools. Excavations in Gona, Ethiopia , have produced thousands of artifacts, and through radioisotopic dating and magnetostratigraphy the sites can be firmly dated to 2.6 million years ago. Evidence shows these early hominins intentionally selected raw stone with good flaking qualities and chose appropriately sized stones for their needs to produce sharp-edged tools for cutting. The earliest Paleolithic stone tool industry,
25080-447: The foundations for Cairo . The first phase of Muslim rule began with the conquests of the third Aghlabid Emir Ziyadat Allah I of Ifriqiya , and consolidated with the reign of the ninth Emir Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya after the conquest of Taormina . The first attempt to capture Syracuse was under general Asad ibn al-Furat , although it ended in a Byzantine victory. A combination of Persian and Andalusian troops helped to capture
25270-421: The genus Homo —such as Homo habilis , who used simple stone tools—into anatomically modern humans as well as behaviourally modern humans by the Upper Paleolithic . During the end of the Paleolithic Age, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic Age, humans began to produce the earliest works of art and to engage in religious or spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual . Conditions during
25460-451: The growth of smallholdings, a dent to the dominance of the landed estates. The Arabs further improved irrigation systems through Qanats , introducing oranges, lemons, pistachio, and sugarcane to Sicily. Ibn Hawqal , a Baghdadi merchant who visited Sicily in 950, commented that a walled suburb called the Kasr (the palace) was the center of Palermo, with the great Friday mosque on the site of
25650-579: The help of the Abbasids, he advised the Abbasid Emir of Mesopotamia , Abd al-Malik ibn Salih , to "throw away his silk and put on his armour", warning him against the aggressive new reign of Nikephoros I . The Muslim conquest was a see-saw affair; the local population resisted fiercely and the Arabs suffered considerable dissension and infighting among themselves during this process. Not until 965
25840-546: The hot stones into a perishable container to heat the water. This technology is typified in the Middle Palaeolithic example of the Abri Pataud hearths. The Lower Paleolithic Homo erectus possibly invented rafts ( c. 840,000 – c. 800,000 BP) to travel over large bodies of water, which may have allowed a group of Homo erectus to reach the island of Flores and evolve into
26030-648: The inhabitants of the region being deported to other regions of Norman Sicily , or to the Norman County of Apulia and Calabria . The local population conquered by the Muslims were Greek-speaking Byzantine Christians, but there were also a significant number of Jews. Christians and Jews were tolerated in Muslim Sicily as dhimmis , and had to pay the Jizya poll tax, and Kharaj land tax, but were exempt from
26220-517: The initials of Santo Cosma and Santo Damiano , the two saints to whom the local basilica is dedicated) and quite a few others. The symbols now visible on a row of trulli in via Monte Pertica (cross, pierced heart, host with rays radiating from it, tree, dove symbolising the Holy Spirit, and crescent with a cross) were painted only in the late twentieth century and the early 2000s when the roof cones were renovated. The quaint symbols that grace
26410-419: The interior cone. An alternative heating solution was to use a central brasero with embers in it (a specimen may be seen in Alberobello's Museo del Territorio). The thick stone walls and dome of the trullo that cool pleasantly during the summer, tend to become unpleasantly cold during the winter months, condensing the moisture given off by cooking and breathing, making it difficult to feel warm even in front of
26600-634: The invention of these devices brought fish into the human diets, which provided a hedge against starvation and a more abundant food supply. Thanks to their technology and their advanced social structures, Paleolithic groups such as the Neanderthals—who had a Middle Paleolithic level of technology—appear to have hunted large game just as well as Upper Paleolithic modern humans, and the Neanderthals in particular may have likewise hunted with projectile weapons. Nonetheless, Neanderthal use of projectile weapons in hunting occurred very rarely (or perhaps never) and
26790-612: The islands Norman occupiers and forced conversion continued under the Spanish invaders, where the majority of Sicily's population were forced to convert from their former religions. Despite the historical push for Catholicism in Sicily, a minority of other religious communities thrive in Sicily. Sicilian Catholics For Catholics in Sicily, the Virgin Hodegetria is the patroness of Sicily. The Sicilian people are also known for their deep devotion to some Sicilian female saints:
26980-434: The lack of control of fire: studies of cave settlements in Europe indicate no regular use of fire prior to c. 400,000 – c. 300,000 BP. East Asian fossils from this period are typically placed in the genus Homo erectus . Very little fossil evidence is available at known Lower Paleolithic sites in Europe, but it is believed that hominins who inhabited these sites were likewise Homo erectus . There
27170-581: The late Middle Paleolithic around 100,000 BP or perhaps even earlier. Archaeological evidence from the Dordogne region of France demonstrates that members of the European early Upper Paleolithic culture known as the Aurignacian used calendars ( c. 30,000 BP). This was a lunar calendar that was used to document the phases of the moon. Genuine solar calendars did not appear until
27360-693: The later Roman Catholic cathedral. The suburb of Al-Khalisa (Kalsa) contained the Sultan's palace, baths, a mosque, government offices, and a private prison. Ibn Hawqual reckoned there were 7,000 individual butchers trading in 150 shops. By 1050, Palermo had a population of 350,000, making it one of the largest cities in Europe, behind Moorish-Spain's capital Córdoba and the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, which had populations over 450–500,000. Palermo's population dropped to 150,000 under Norman rule. By 1330 Palermo's population had declined to 51,000, possibly due to
27550-404: The main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the over-sexual representation of women) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males during the Upper Paleolithic. Trullo A trullo (plural, trulli ) is a traditional Apulian dry stone hut with a conical roof . Their style of construction is specific to the Itria Valley , in
27740-631: The majority of the population. It was Syracuse where the Byzantine Emperor Constans II desired to move his capital in 663 AD, a decision which eventually led to his assassination. Sicily remained under autonomous stable Byzantine rule as the Theme/Province of Sicily ( Theme (Byzantine district) ) for several peaceful centuries, until an invasion by Arab Muslims ( Aghlabids from the Banu Tamim Clan ) in
27930-402: The martyrs Agatha and Lucy , who are the patron saints of Catania and Syracuse respectively, and the hermit Saint Rosalia , patroness of Palermo. Sicilian people have significantly contributed to the history of many religions. There have been four Sicilian Popes ( Agatho , Leo II , Sergius I , and Stephen III ) and a Sicilian Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople ( Methodios I ). Sicily
28120-443: The monarchial realm of Sardinia . After the unification of Italy and the Fascist era , a wave of Sicilian nationalism led to the adoption of the Statute of Sicily , under which the island has become an autonomous region . Since 1946, the island enjoys the most advanced special status of all the autonomous regions . Sicily has experienced the presence of a number of different cultures and ethnicities in its vast history, including
28310-415: The most gender-equal time in human history. Archaeological evidence from art and funerary rituals indicates that a number of individual women enjoyed seemingly high status in their communities, and it is likely that both sexes participated in decision making. The earliest known Paleolithic shaman ( c. 30,000 BP) was female. Jared Diamond suggests that the status of women declined with
28500-569: The oldest example of ceramic art, the Venus of Dolní Věstonice ( c. 29,000 – c. 25,000 BP). Kilu Cave at Buku island , Solomon Islands , demonstrates navigation of some 60 km of open ocean at 30,000 BCcal. Early dogs were domesticated sometime between 30,000 and 14,000 BP, presumably to aid in hunting. However, the earliest instances of successful domestication of dogs may be much more ancient than this. Evidence from canine DNA collected by Robert K. Wayne suggests that dogs may have been first domesticated in
28690-519: The other Southern Balkan populations such as Albanians of Albania , Kosovo and the Arbëreshë people . According to one study, Y-DNA haplogroups were found at the following frequencies in Sicily: R1 (36.76%), J (29.65%), E1b1b (18.21%), I (7.62%), G (5.93%), T (5.51%), Q (2.54%). R1 and I haplogroups are typical in West European and North European populations while J, T, G, Q and E1b1b (and their various subclades ) consist of lineages with differential distribution across Europe and
28880-471: The paintings of half-human, half-animal figures and the remoteness of the caves are reminiscent of modern hunter-gatherer shamanistic practices. Symbol-like images are more common in Paleolithic cave paintings than are depictions of animals or humans, and unique symbolic patterns might have been trademarks that represent different Upper Paleolithic ethnic groups. Venus figurines have evoked similar controversy. Archaeologists and anthropologists have described
29070-454: The personification of the river god Anapus in Greek-Sicilian mythology. The Elymians inhabited the western parts of Sicily, while the Sicanians inhabited the central parts, and the Sicels inhabited the eastern parts. From the 11th century BC, Phoenicians began to settle in western Sicily, having already started colonies on the nearby parts of North Africa and Malta . Sicily was later colonized and heavily settled by Greeks , beginning in
29260-695: The pigment ochre from late Lower Paleolithic Acheulean archaeological sites suggests that Acheulean societies, like later Upper Paleolithic societies, collected and used ochre to create rock art. Nevertheless, it is also possible that the ochre traces found at Lower Paleolithic sites is naturally occurring. Upper Paleolithic humans produced works of art such as cave paintings, Venus figurines, animal carvings, and rock paintings. Upper Paleolithic art can be divided into two broad categories: figurative art such as cave paintings that clearly depicts animals (or more rarely humans); and nonfigurative, which consists of shapes and symbols. Cave paintings have been interpreted in
29450-486: The planet. Multiple hominid groups coexisted for some time in certain locations. Homo neanderthalensis were still found in parts of Eurasia c. 40,000 BP years, and engaged in an unknown degree of interbreeding with Homo sapiens sapiens . DNA studies also suggest an unknown degree of interbreeding between Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens denisova . Hominin fossils not belonging either to Homo neanderthalensis or to Homo sapiens species, found in
29640-413: The plural), i.e. builder of casedde . There are many theories behind the origin of the design. One of the more popular theories is that due to high taxation on property, the people of Apulia built dry stone wall constructions so that they could be dismantled quickly when tax inspectors were in the area. In available historical records from the mid-fourteenth century to the late sixteenth century,
29830-598: The possible wood hut at Terra Amata . Fire was used by the Lower Paleolithic hominins Homo erectus and Homo ergaster as early as 300,000 to 1.5 million years ago and possibly even earlier by the early Lower Paleolithic (Oldowan) hominin Homo habilis or by robust Australopithecines such as Paranthropus . However, the use of fire only became common in the societies of the following Middle Stone Age and Middle Paleolithic . Use of fire reduced mortality rates and provided protection against predators. Early hominins may have begun to cook their food as early as
30020-402: The present day, such as the Lombards of Sicily . Other migrants arrived from southern Italy , as well as Normandy , southern France , England and other parts of northern Europe . The Siculo-Norman rule of the Hauteville dynasty continued until 1198, when Frederick II of Sicily , the son of a Siculo-Norman queen and a Swabian-German emperor ascended the throne. In fact, it was during
30210-455: The reign of this Hohenstaufen king Frederick II , that the poetic form known as a sonnet was invented by Giacomo da Lentini , the head Poet, Teacher and Notary of the Sicilian School for Poetry . Frederick II was also responsible for the Muslim settlement of Lucera . His descendants governed Sicily until the Papacy invited a French prince to take the throne, which led to a decade-and-a-half of French rule under Charles I of Sicily ; he
30400-527: The return of the Sicilian Bnei Anusim to Judaism. .137 Valenza, Giuseppe. ELAMITI ELIMIOTI ELIMI Il teatro genealogico degli Elimi nel crocevia del Mediterraneo . Prefazione Vaccarella, Ilaria.2022. ISBN 978-88-908854-2-6 Paleolithic Fertile Crescent : Europe : Africa : Siberia : The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( c. 3.3 million – c. 11,700 BC ) ( / ˌ p eɪ l i oʊ ˈ l ɪ θ ɪ k , ˌ p æ l i -/ PAY -lee-oh- LITH -ik, PAL -ee- ), also called
30590-419: The rocky Byzantine district of coastal Santa Febronia in Palagonia , in Cuddaru d' Crastu (Tornabé-Mercato d'Arrigo) near Pietraperzia , where there are remains of a fortress partly carved in stone, and – with different ceramic forms – also near Agrigento in Monte Grande . The discovery of a cup of 'Etna type' in the area of Comiso , among local ceramic objects led to the discovery of commercial trades with
30780-408: The same time the island was settled by prehistoric humans. There is no evidence of prehistoric human presence on Saint Paul island (though early human settlements dating as far back as 6500 BP were found on the nearby Aleutian Islands ). Nearly all of our knowledge of Paleolithic people and way of life comes from archaeology and ethnographic comparisons to modern hunter-gatherer cultures such as
30970-404: The sexual act. The Castelluccio culture is dated to a period between 2200 BC and 1800 BC, although some believe it to be contemporary to the Middle-Late Helladic period (1800/1400 BC)." "Sites related to the Castelluccio culture were present in the villages of south-east Sicily, including Monte Casale , Cava/Quarry d'Ispica, Pachino , Niscemi , Cava/Quarry Lazzaro, near Noto , of Rosolini , in
31160-423: The small hominin Homo floresiensis . However, this hypothesis is disputed within the anthropological community. The possible use of rafts during the Lower Paleolithic may indicate that Lower Paleolithic hominins such as Homo erectus were more advanced than previously believed, and may have even spoken an early form of modern language. Supplementary evidence from Neanderthal and modern human sites located around
31350-459: The south-west there was a strong integration with local cultures. The only known single bell-shaped glass in eastern Sicily was found in Syracuse. All three tribes lived both a sedentary pastoral and orchard farming lifestyle, and a semi-nomadic fishing , transhumance and mixed farming lifestyle. Prior to the Neolithic Revolution , Paleolithic Sicilians would have lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, just like most human cultures before
31540-425: The spouses could live with neither the husband's relatives nor the wife's relatives at all. Taken together, most likely, the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers can be characterized as multilocal. Early examples of artistic expression, such as the Venus of Tan-Tan and the patterns found on elephant bones from Bilzingsleben in Thuringia , may have been produced by Acheulean tool users such as Homo erectus prior to
31730-686: The start of the Middle Paleolithic period. However, the earliest undisputed evidence of art during the Paleolithic comes from Middle Paleolithic / Middle Stone Age sites such as Blombos Cave –South Africa–in the form of bracelets , beads , rock art , and ochre used as body paint and perhaps in ritual. Undisputed evidence of art only becomes common in the Upper Paleolithic. Lower Paleolithic Acheulean tool users, according to Robert G. Bednarik, began to engage in symbolic behavior such as art around 850,000 BP. They decorated themselves with beads and collected exotic stones for aesthetic, rather than utilitarian qualities. According to him, traces of
31920-402: The strata of limestone bedrock and flow through underground watercourses into the Adriatic. There is no permanent surface water, and water for living purposes must be trapped in catchment basins and cisterns. The surface forms a landscape of rolling hills and ridges punctuated now and again with dolines and other forms of enclosed depressions characteristic of karsts. The trullo is essentially
32110-423: The structural walls of a trullo are laid directly on the bedrock, after removal of the topsoil when necessary. Their width varies from 0.80 metres to 2.70 metres (a measure recorded in the Trullo Sovrano). Their height (from ground level to where the vault starts) ranges from 1.60 metres to 2 metres. Their exterior facing has a 3 to 5% batter. The stones needed for starting to build a trullo were provided by digging
32300-469: The summer. On the other hand trulli can be quite dark inside. Some trullo houses have had their perimeter walls raised substantially so that their cones may be hidden from view, making the buildings resemble ordinary houses. A number of conical roofs have a truncated top with a round hole in it covered by a movable circular slab. Access to the hole is by an outside stairway built into the roof. These trulli were for storage of grain, hay, or straw. Today,
32490-517: The surviving trulli are popular with British and German tourists and are often bought and restored for general use. Anyone wishing to restore a trullo, however, needs to conform with many regulations, as trulli are protected under the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO ) world heritage law. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, a large number of trullo houses have been restored and converted into second homes or self-catering cottages. In 1999, rebuilding
32680-422: The tools themselves that allowed access to a wider variety and amount of food sources. For example, microliths or small stone tools or points were invented around 70,000–65,000 BP and were essential to the invention of bows and atlatls (spear throwers) in the following Upper Paleolithic. Harpoons were invented and used for the first time during the late Middle Paleolithic ( c. 90,000 BP);
32870-416: The total of almost 5.1 million population (nearly 3.5% of the population) ; Romanians with more than 50,000 make up the most immigrants, followed by Tunisians , Moroccans , Sri Lankans , Albanians , and others mostly from Eastern Europe. As in the rest of Italy, the primary religion is Roman Catholicism (but with combined Latin & Byzantine Rites ) and the official language is Italian ; Sicilian
33060-459: The traditional shape of the hut. The housing are made up of mostly circular huts bounded by stone walls, mainly in small numbers. Some huts have rectangular shape, particularly the roof. The economy was based on farming, herding, hunting and fishing. There are numerous evidences of trading networks, in particular of bronze vessels and weapons of Mycenaean and Nuragic (Sardinian) production. There were close trading relationships/networks established with
33250-433: The trullo-like cones of bungalows at the Hotel dei Trulli in Alberobello first appeared in the late 1950s, when the hotel resort was built. The vast majority of trulli have one room under each conical roof, with additional living spaces in arched alcoves . Children would sleep in alcoves made in the wall with curtains hung to separate them from the central room. A multi-room trullo house has many cones, each representing
33440-412: Was a vernacular variety of Arabic once spoken in Sicily and neighbouring Malta between the end of the ninth century and the mid to late thirteenth century. The language became extinct in Sicily, but in Malta it eventually evolved into what is now the Maltese language . The Siculish dialect is the macaronic "Sicilianization" of English language words and phrases by immigrants from Sicily to
33630-423: Was accused of conspiring against Empress Irene in favour of Nikephoros . After Elpidius's forces were militarily defeated by Empress Irene's large fleet dispatched in Sicily, he, along with his lieutenant, the dux of Calabria named Nikephoros, defected to the Abbasid Caliphate , where he was posthumously acknowledged as rival emperor. After losing another military expedition, this time against Asia Minor with
33820-404: Was also believed to have been the region where Zeus buried the Serpentine giant Typhon , and the humanoid giant Enceladus in classical mythology. The Cyclopes , giant one-eyed humanoid creatures in classical Greco-Roman mythology , known as the maker of Zeus' thunderbolts , were traditionally associated with Sicily and the Aeolian Islands . The Cyclopes were said to have been assistants to
34010-412: Was an early influence in the development of standard Italian, although its use remained confined to an intellectual elite. This was a literary language in Sicily created under the auspices of Frederick II and his court of notaries or Magna Curia which, headed by Giacomo da Lentini , also gave birth to the Sicilian School , widely inspired by troubadour literature. It is in this language that appeared
34200-404: Was defeated at the Battle of Beneventum (275 BC) by the Romans, he decided to end his campaigns against Southern Italy, and return to Epirus , resulting in the loss of all his territorial gains in Italy. The city of Tarentum however still remained under Epirote control. The ancient historian Diodorus Siculus who wrote and recorded the monumental universal history Bibliotheca historica , and
34390-418: Was even lower at 4,000–6,000 individuals. However, remains of thousands of butchered animals and tools made by Palaeolithic humans were found in Lapa do Picareiro , a cave in Portugal , dating back between 41,000 and 38,000 years ago. Some researchers have noted that science, limited in that age to some early ideas about astronomy (or cosmology ), had limited impact on Paleolithic technology. Making fire
34580-497: Was fabricated by Anti-Italian xenophobic nativists from primarily anglophonic nations . Overall the estimated Central European and Northwestern European paternal contributions in South Italy and Sicily are about 63% and 26% respectively. Fernandes et al. (2019), The Arrival of Steppe and Iranian Related Ancestry in the Islands of the Western Mediterranean, found that in Sicily, Western Steppe Herders ancestry arrived by ~2200 BCE and likely came at least in part from Spain. 4 of
34770-429: Was later deposed in the War of the Sicilian Vespers against French rule , which put the daughter of Manfred of Sicily – Constance II and her husband Peter III of Aragon , a member of the House of Barcelona , on the throne. Their descendants ruled the Kingdom of Sicily until 1401. Following the Compromise of Caspe in 1412 the Sicilian throne passed to the Iberian monarchs from Aragon and Castile . In 1735,
34960-429: Was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques. This technique increased efficiency by allowing the creation of more controlled and consistent flakes . It allowed Middle Paleolithic humans to create stone-tipped spears , which were the earliest composite tools, by hafting sharp pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. In addition to improving tool-making methods, the Middle Paleolithic also saw an improvement of
35150-402: Was occupied by c. 1,700,000 BP, and northern China was reached by c. 1,660,000 BP. By the end of the Lower Paleolithic, members of the hominin family were living in what is now China, western Indonesia, and, in Europe, around the Mediterranean and as far north as England, France, southern Germany, and Bulgaria. Their further northward expansion may have been limited by
35340-407: Was previously under Carthaginian fortification & protection before he captured it. Pyrrhus even attempted to capture Lilybaeum ( Siege of Lilybaeum ) from the Punics , which didn't succeed. A couple years later (275 BC), Envoys from Southern Italy had notified him that of all the Greek cities in Italy, only Tarentum hadn't fallen to the Romans. Upon hearing this, coinciding with the fact that
35530-452: Was the island's conquest successfully completed by the Fatimid Caliphate , with Syracuse in particular resisting almost to the end ( Siege of Syracuse (877-878) ). Jawhar the Sicilian , the Fatimid general of Slavic origins that led the conquest of Egypt , under Caliph Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah , was born and grew up in Ragusa, Sicily . Jawhar served as viceroy of Egypt until 973, consolidating Fatimid control over North Africa, and laying
35720-444: Was the most populous Greek city state in the world. Sicilian politics was intertwined with politics in Greece itself, leading Athens , for example, to mount the disastrous Sicilian Expedition against Syracuse in 415–413 BC during the Peloponnesian War , which ended up severely affecting a defeated Athens, both politically and economically, in the following years to come. Another battle which Syracuse took part in, this time under
35910-405: Was there a formal division of labor during the Paleolithic. Each member of the group was skilled at all tasks essential to survival, regardless of individual abilities. Theories to explain the apparent egalitarianism have arisen, notably the Marxist concept of primitive communism . Christopher Boehm (1999) has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have evolved in Paleolithic societies because of
36100-433: Was widespread knowledge, and it was possible without an understanding of chemical processes, These types of practical skills are sometimes called crafts. Religion, superstitution or appeals to the supernatural may have played a part in the cultural explanations of phenomena like combustion . Paleolithic humans made tools of stone, bone (primarily of deer), and wood. The early paleolithic hominins, Australopithecus , were
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