Settlement patterns in 5th century Sicilian countryside

Abstract

This paper is focused on the main dynamics in the settlement patterns in Sicilian countryside during the fifth century. A century of geo-political transformations that invested Sicily, especially due to its Mediterranean centrality, between the affirmation of the Vandalic power and the consolidation of Ostrogoth control following the famous, and debated, treated between Genserico and Odoacre in the year 476. Macroscopic events such as the progressive crisis of the Western Empire, the formation of barbarian kingdoms, the specific treaties of regime change, certainly influenced the settlement dynamics in island. The paper outlines a picture of the archeology of the Sicilian countryside in the fifth century between the prodomes of the "golden siglo" of the late antiquity villas in the fourth century and the Justinian reconquest of the island in the first half of the sixth century.