Central Mediterranean

During this ancient period of external influences, numerous Greek and Sicilian townships were named Megara, due to a strong following of the earth deity Megara (i.e. Demeter – Gaia’s underground mysteries). (T: 417-418.) “The women to this day perform rites that are analogous to the story told (T: 418).” But given the extensive number of villages named Megara, it continues to be confusing. As discussed by Pausanias (5.23.6), numerous Sicilian villages named Megara Hyblaea (Hyblafa) has resulted in difficulties distinguishing between various sites and districts. Given extensive research, the Cathedra Kourotrophos Goddess comes from the Sanctuary of Hyblaea of the Hyblaean Megarians at Catana.

The article explores the relation between detention and information-giving practices and investigates its contribution to migration control and (re)bordering processes at the southern European border. By focusing on the case of the hotspot system implemented in Sicily, the paper explores two main issues: a) the role played by detention practices and their relation with processes of migrant selection and migrants’ rights stratification; b) the link between authorities’ detention practices and information-giving practices carried out by intergovernmental organisations such as the UNHCR and the IOM, and the contribution of
this relation to processes of migrant differential inclusion. The research methodology is built on ten months of fieldwork carried out in eastern Sicily between 2017 and 2018, on document analysis and on semi-structured interviews conducted with seventeen key informants. The article argues that the intergovernmental organisations information-giving practices about asylum, identification and relocation procedures a) contributed to perpetuating subtle and indirect forms of migration control and b) were linked, more or less directly, to detention practices carried out by authorities, and this relation contributed to reinforcing the stratification of migrants’ access to mobility and rights.

The aim of the article is to foster an interdisciplinary debate regarding the direction that studies of early metallurgy in thecentral Mediterranean region (from the late Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age, c4500-1650 BC) should be taking in the next decade. It is argued in particular that early metallurgical research has followed an idiosyncratic course due to the sway held on the discipline by Idealism, an influential philosophical movement that greatly hindered the development of science-based archaeology for most of the 20thcentury. The last fifteen years, however, have witnessed an unprecedented if rather tumultuous expansion of metallurgical research, and important advances have been made in the chronology and chaîne opératoire of early metal technology and artefacts. Yet it is the authors’ contention that, in order to reap full benefits from the recent disciplinary growth, an explicit research agenda must be set. This is to be grounded in the cross-disciplinary examination of metals based on archaeological as well as scientific methods of analysis.

In the last decade, interest in geoethics and the ethical, sociological, and
cultural implications of Earth Sciences has increased considerably. This involves emphasizes the fundamental role of geological and geographical studies in finding solutions to practical problems which humans face and are also compatible with the preservation of nature and the planet. In this context any member of society can play an active role during natural catastrophes. This is illustrated by the results of a questionnaire which was given to students and adults in Calabria and Basilicata two regions in southern Italy with medium–high occurrences of seismic hazard.
The questionnaire was aimed at evaluating the knowledge that people effectively possessed in reacting and adapting earthquakes (related to age, experience, and area of earthquakes origin.). As part of the evaluation, the same questionnaire was given to students in Malta, a zone of low-to-moderate seismic hazard where awareness of human action, decisive in turning an extreme event in a disaster emerged in the
results. To effectively evaluate the risk, it is not enough to understand the hazard, but to assess the vulnerability of cultural heritage in the area, affected by natural disasters. In this work we present two case-studies. First, an open source GIS project conducted in Calabria, focusing enhancing cultural tourism, the historical memory of a region and seismic hazard risk education; and secondly on web applications
concerning the perception of earthquakes in Maltese citizens.

During the months of July and August 2016 I lived in Foggia, a city in Apulia, Italy. There I conducted an ethnographic research on the lives of agricultural migrant laborers that live in an abandoned milk packaging plant, and have created a semi-permanent community within the outskirts of the city. This article is based on the thesis that I published following my research.

Early metallurgy in the Central Mediterranean (ca. 4th millennium B.C.) represents an important technological, socio-economic, and symbolic innovation that sees the first appearance of increasingly long-distance exchange networks, emerging gender roles tied to material biographies, and developing ideas of personhood as inferred through changing burial practices. While there have been numerous studies on the 'origins' and spread of metallurgy in the Central Mediterranean, there is a surprising lack of data on how particular production practices varied through time and space. Moreover, there has yet to be an in-depth exploration of whether or not the proliferation of early metals truly represents a large-scale reconfiguration of prehistoric social organization - replete with shifting alliances, exchange partnerships, and social groups - or merely the integration of new practices into pre-existing Neolithic communities of practice predicated on the consumption of other raw materials such as obsidian.

Through targeted analyses using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectrometry on metal artifacts in northern Italy and Sardinia, this poster represents a preliminary exploration of the effects of early metalworking on pre-existing traditions of consumption, including the reasons behind the rapid termination of a 3,000 year tradition of long-distance obsidian circulation and the reconfiguration of these exchange networks near the source areas. Central to this work is the idea that characterization studies between artifact categories are a powerful means of engaging with major archaeological questions, and in doing so represent a powerful example of interdisciplinary studies across the sciences and humanities.