Sense of place and identity in the prehistoric Mediterranean Islands (Topoi B-4)

Islands have a distinct “sense of place”: studies of present-day island communities indicate that their perceived physical containment, which is felt particularly on small islands, results in strong place identification or in an “island identity”. As an archaeologist, Helen Dawson is interested in finding evidence for such place-identification in the past. The smaller islands surrounding Sicily, with their rich archaeological record, provided ideal case studies to test these ideas – from their initial colonisation during the Neolithic to their becoming integrated in wider trading and inter-cultural networks during the Bronze Age (ca. 5500-900 BCE).