L’intermittenza della connettività del mare nella protostoria italiana

During the 2nd millennium a.e.v., which comprises more than two-thirds of the arc of protohistory (the beginning of which cannot be traced back beyond the last quarter of the 3rd millennium and the end of which falls no more than three centuries into the 1st millennium), the seas surrounding the Italian peninsula and separating it from, or joining it to, the three large islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, at the same time of environmental changes that were neither as profound nor as accidental as those recorded in the ancient phases of prehistory, did not continuously play the same role. In particular, the interposition of the pelagic basins has influenced the cultural, commercial and political connections between settled groups, cultural formations and finally proto-state structures with varying degrees of incidence over time, representing the final outcome of proto-history itself in some areas; in other geographical areas, pre-state organizations persist, reflecting the distancing function of the seas, in addition to the strong trend for communities on opposite shores to move closer together. In this perspective, it is necessary to consider what forms of social organization the areas involved in the maritime trade had, since the possibility of investing in seafaring enterprises with the guarantee of an economic return is closely dependent on the level of social and economic structuring of the corresponding territories. The paper offers a discussion about discontinuity in transmarine relations between the territories along the peninsula's coastline and those on the neighboring coasts during the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, through the critical analysis of archaeological indicators - including the means of transport that made the contacts possible - and the evaluation of the impact of geographical and environmental factors. Also, the role of smaller islands, both scattered and grouped in archipelagos, which appears to be presumptively important even for those that have not preserved or have not yet revealed the corresponding archaeological traces, is included in this brief overview.