Ognina - a puzzling prehistoric site in Sicily

Abstract

In 1965, Prof. Bernabo Brea of Syracuse excavated a site on the small island of Ognina, off the east coast of Sicily 12 km south of Syracuse. He found two levels of prehistoric occupation, a lower one of the Early Neolithic Stentinello Culture, and an upper one dating to the Early Bronze Age. At these periods, however, it may not have been an island but rather a small promontory beside a sheltered inlet, making an ideal small port. The Bronze Age material contained none of the Castelluccio Culture, widespread in South-east Sicily at the time, but pottery which Brea recognised as being closely similar to some which John Evans had found in Tarxien Cemetery contexts in Malta. He therefore suggested that the site had been refounded at this period, after standing empty since the Early Neolithic, by emigrants from Malta, who had probably established it as a trading post for their commercial interchanges with the Sicilians. This was adopted as the orthodox view by Italian prehistorians down to the present day. However, some uneasiness was felt among those studying Maltese prehistory, on the grounds that there was very little evidence for a sea-faring tradition in that early period, and though there were undoubtedly some raw materials imported into the islands, this was on a comparatively small scale