Archipelagos adjacent to Sicily around 2200 BC: attractive environments or suitable geo-economic locations?

t is widely recognised that a phenomenon involving cultural contacts and the movement of small groups of people took place in the central Mediterranean around 23oo BC, at a time when important climate changes were happening all around the region. Seafarers, probably from the Peloponnesus and the Ionian Islands, reached Southern Italy, Sicily, and the small islands near Sicily. These small groups of people appear to have elected the Maltese and Aeolian archipelagos, as pref­ erable places to settle. In the following paper it is attempted to combine archaeo­ logical and archaeobotanical evidence from new research projects in both archipelagos, in order to correlate cultural dynamics and climatic­environmental changes from a dia­ chronic perspective, encompassing the Early and Middle Bronze Age