Abstract
Volcanic activity resumed during early Middle Ages times at Lipari following at least 6000 years of quiescence. This phenomenon occurred in a social context that had continuously developed from prehistoric times to the Roman age and was burdened by a demographic crisis that involved the archipelago between the 6th and 11th century AD. The rare archaeological records relating to the 6th - 11th centuries suggest abrupt changes in the population of the islands. The medieval sources are rich in religious and fantastic references to volcanic events linked to Lipari and Vulcano, testifying the uneasy condition for the human communities. This work concerns the resilience and adaptation of the communities to volcanic activity during the Late Middle Ages in Lipari. Starting from 1083 the Aeolian archipelago was involved in a repopulation program, implemented in 1095 by the Constitutum and organized by the Benedictine Monastery with the annexed S. Bartolomeo Cathedral on the castle. From the 13th century the volcanic phenomena, strictly limited to the northern sector of the island, did not interfere as previously with the anthropic activities. The Monastery will be enlarged in the Norman phase during the first half of the 12th century with the construction of the cloister. New historical documents relating to the 1264, report news of fires and land movements on Lipari. Recent age determinations obtained for the obsidian flow of Rocche Rosse at 1220 ± 30 AD (archaeomagnetic dating) and for an obsidian block of the Lami pyroclastic cone at 1243 ± 190 (fission-track dating) allow to define the age of the last phase of activity of the Monte Pilato-Lami-Rocche Rosse complex, and to associate it the events reported on 1264’s historical documents. This work makes in comparison volcanological, archaeological and historical dates and described an updated summary of one of the lesser known phases of the history of the archipelago. The main consequence of the medieval volcanic activity at Lipari caused a clear division of the territory with the population confined in the southeast quadrant, protected to the north by Serra and Monte Rosa which represented a natural orographic barrier.
Highlights
The population of the Aeolian islands (Figure 1) in the medieval period, from the 6th century to the 13th century, has many gaps in research that make difficult the historical reconstruction
The sector with burials dated to the 4th - 6th century AD was investigated in trench XXXVI [Bernabò Brea and Cavalier, 1994] where, as had already been observed in other excavation trenches of the same necropolis (Figure 2), the archaeological layers were covered by a pumice layer, usually very thin but in some areas reaching a thickness of 20 cm
The Middle Ages is characterized by an increasing of the volcanic activity of the Lipari-Vulcano system, which involved the eruptive centres of Lipari (Monte Pilato, Forgia Vecchia and Rocche Rosse) (Figure 5) and Vulcano (Gran Cratere and Vulcanello)
Summary
The population of the Aeolian islands (Figure 1) in the medieval period, from the 6th century to the 13th century, has many gaps in research that make difficult the historical reconstruction. This contribution will try to offer some new information to the historical and cultural context of the last eruptions of Lipari that involved the island between. Maria Clara Martinelli et al the 8th and the 13th centuries. This contribution, not exhaustive, take in consideration historical, archaeological and volcanological data with the aim to focus the changes of the territory and human communities in relation to the volcanic activity
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