The Early Bronze Age Village of La Muculufa and Prehistoric Hut Architecture in Sicily

Abstract

Excavations since 1982 at La Muculufa in south-central Sicily have revealed portions of an Early Bronze Age village of the Castelluccian culture dated to the end of the third millennium B. C. Constructed on a series of terraces, building structures uncovered in an area comprising roughly 1% of the total area of the village were found to be circular or ovoid in plan and raised in wattle and daub on stone wall socles. Reconstruction of two structures is possible through the analysis of the remains at ground level and the impressions left by structural materials in recovered daub fragments. Evidence for a series of at least three stratigraphic phases, all within the Sicilian Early Bronze Age, offers a glimpse of increasing sophistication in architectural design, including the appearance of an archetypical circular hut with an interior bench, a central feature, and a complex support structure for the roof. Comparison of this hut with similar structures at later Bronze and Iron Age sites across Sicily and on neighboring islands underlines the importance of the Castelluccian Early Bronze Age as a period of crystallization in the development of indigenous Sicilian cultural traditions.