The Sicilian countryside during the Byzantine period: Archaeological Perspectives on Settlement Patterns

Caught between the tradition of classical/ Roman archaeology and recent developments in Islamic archaeology in Sicily, research on the Byzantine period has not yet emerged as a real object of investigation in its own right. This article offers a summary of the trends in settlement patterns in the countryside detected by excavations and surveys relating to the period between the sixth and ninth centuries. This time span saw the end of the late Roman landscape, characterized by villas, and the emergence of new settlements that often reoccupied the Roman complexes. The formation of the thema of Sikelia at the end of the seventh century would seem to be the turning point for the formation of new structures in the countryside, where a defensive system of castra was planned and the use of rupestrian settlements began to emerge. Between the phenomena of continuity, discontinuity, innovation, and resilience, the dynamics of the Sicilian Byzantine countryside present a challenge for new archaeological research projects to place these patterns within the macro-phenomena that characterized the post-Roman Mediterranean area.