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From a political-cultural point of view, the impact of the Roman conquest of Sicily can be seen in different aspects: for example, the policy of conquest, the flow of Italici in the island since the II century. B.C., the adoption of architectural structures of Italic tradition already from the Hellenistic age, especially in the sacred architecture. Of course, the situation in Sicily is particularly complex because the Romans did not come into contact with a single culture, but at least with three different ones: the indigenous ("Hellenized"), the Punic and the Greek (in its western colonial form). This makes it particularly difficult to provide a unified picture of the problem. If the relationship with the Punic culture can be seen, even with its specificity, within the broader framework of the contact between the Roman-Italic culture and the Punic-Hellenistic culture, in one with Africa, and if compared to the indigenous communities , especially in western Sicily, one can effectively use the formula "become Greeks to be philoromani”, it is more difficult to understand the relationship with the Greek-Hellenistic culture of the island, because the comparison with other areas of the Hellenistic world, such as Greece itself or Asia Minor, helps us only to a certain degree. Even more complex is the problem if we face it from other non-geographic points of view, such as the differentiation between cities and countryside or the reaction with respect to Roman culture within different social classes. In this sense, the Augustan policy of founding Roman colonies on the island has long been identified as a central turning point, because it involved the massive introduction of Italian settlers in the selected cities and new owners in the countryside. In the cities, the impact on the urban landscape was mainly studied, such as the transformation of the agora into a forum with the fundamental introduction of the imperial cult, the arrangement of equipped or functional areas, and the adoption of new architectural forms, such as the amphitheatre, necessary for the lifestyle of the new settlers. In this work we want to explore more about the role of the different classes present on the island: The Roman settlers, the Italics who have been living in Sicily for a long time, the local Hellenistic ruling classes, the subordinate population. And turn our gaze to the countryside, to try to capture signs of continuity and discontinuity with the previous situation or with the contemporary reality of the cities, especially in the territories of the Roman colonies.

In this work some new considerations and an update of the observations on the topography and urban planning of ancient Palermo are presented, thirty years after our article published in Kokalos 1987. It is noted that the hypotheses then formulated were confirmed by new archaeological excavations and new archaeological samples are proposed to solve open problems and create an archaeological open-GIS of the city accessible to all interested users and public administrations.

The work examines recent developments in research on ancient roads with particular attention to Sicily.

Si illustrano gli aspetti salienti della valutazione della ricerca nell'ambito dell' Antichistica, i risultati della VQR, e le peculiarità dei prodotti dell'area 10. The main aspects of the evaluation of research in the field of Antiquities, the results of the VQR, and the peculiarities of the products of the area 10 are illustrated.

Si riesamina il dibattito, talvolta conflittuale, che negli ultimi decenni ha contrapposto i fautori dell’archeologia dei paesaggi di derivazione anglosassone dai sostenitori della tradizione italiana della topografia antica. Si rileva come alcuni dei presupposti metodologici della topografia antica non erano in contraddizione con le istanze portate avanti dagli archeologi del paesaggio, pur riconoscendosi che topografia antica e archeologia del paesaggio si basano su premesse e approcci differenti e che quest’ultima ha contribuito decisamente alla innovazione metodologica sul campo e al riconoscimento che il paesaggio attuale è il risultato della stratificazione delle attività umane nel corso del tempo. Si conclude con una disamina delle innovazioni metodologiche e con la constatazione che essendo il paesaggio un oggetto complesso, è necessario un approccio totale, che si potrebbe definire “archeologia della complessità”. The purpose of this work is to critically review the relationships between the Italian tradition of ancient topography studies and the landscape archaeology of Anglo-Saxon tradition, introduced in Italy in the seventies of the twentieth century. The methodological assumptions of the two disciplines are emphasized, not always coinciding, but sometimes convergent in the historical interpretation of the dynamics of the landscape in antiquity. The conclusion is that ancient topography and landscape archaeology have different methodological assumptions and approaches, but that a convergence of the two methodologies is possible and that it is necessary to proceed in this direction. Finally, we examine the methodological update in the field in recent decades, and their current critical issues, arguing that it is necessary today to be aware that the landscape is a complex object and must be studied from different points of view and with different methodologies as part of an "archaeology of complexity", as proposed by various scholars.

In this paper, we present the results of archaeological samples conducted in 2010 in the seventeenth-century thermal baths at Termini Imerese. The excavations made it possible to find for the first time some parts of the caldarium of the Roman baths. Some sections of the perimeter wall and the paving of the external ambulatory of the building were identified, as well as a small portion of the narrow internal ambulatory, bordered by a pillared portico that overlooked the circular swimming pool, intended for hot baths, located in the centre of the structure. Some remains of the architectural decoration allow to date the building at the beginning of the first century A.D.

L'articolo illustra lo stato attuale e le strategie delle discipline archeologiche e delle ricerche presso l'Università di Palermo. The paper illustrates the current state and the strategies of the archaeological disciplines and researches in the University of Palermo.

Some observations on the structure of the urban plan of Alesa are presented, trying to frame it in the context of the colonial urbanism of the classical age in Sicily

The aim of this report is to present the results of archaeological samples, executed in order to contrast illegal researches on a necropolis at Baucina, in the northwestern part of Sicily, where Punic, Greek and indigenous traditions coexisted, in a relationship which is the focus of our ongoing investigation. We collected an archeological dataset, whose interpretation is detecting an articulated situation where the interaction between three different ethnic groups gave as result the variety of rituals. The future excavations of the site could increase the perception of this interaction, for a period in which Greeks and Punics designed their spheres of influence of the territories within the Mediterranean area, telling us about the role of the social system within the geopolitical framework.

Il lavoro illustra i risultati delle indagini archeologiche e di topografia urbana effettuate nell'estate del 2014 sul versante orientale della collina di Poggio Meta, all'interno dell'abitato di Akragas. E' stato messo in luce parte di un isolato, la cui cronologia va dall'età arcaica alla tarda età ellenistica, e, anche in seguito alle indagini da telerilevamento (ripresa a bassa quota da drone e indagini georadar) è stato possibile avanzare delle ipotesi sul piano urbanistico della città, che in questa area presenta due orientamenti sovrapposti e leggermente divergenti, verificando in tal modo alcune ipotesi avanzate nella carta archeologica del Parco di Agrigento.

Nel lavoro si ripercorre l'impegno di Nicola Bonacasa nei rapporti tra Istituto di Archeologia di Palermo e il territorio nei tre aspetti fondamentali di promozione delle ricerche, rapporti con la Soprintendenza di Palermo nella tutela e salvaguardia dei siti archeologici e impegno nell'attività di consulenza nei confronti dell'Assessorato regionale dei Beni Culturali.

Nel lavoro si presentano i risultati dei saggi archeologici effettuati in località S. Marina, Petralia Soprana (PA) negli 2013 e 2014, nell'area di una villa rustica di età romana. Si sono individuate due fasi di uso di alcune strutture che circondano un grande cortile porticato su un lato: la prima di età imperiale; la seconda post antica (necropoli).

Solunto is one of the most important Phoenician-Punic colonies of north-western Sicily. Archaeometric researches carried out in the last years ascertained a local production of transport amphorae during Archaic and Classic age (7th-5th century B.C.) through mineralogical, petrographical and chemical analysis of ceramic samples, kiln refuses and local raw materials (clays and alluvial sands). In connection with these earliest works, the present paper was focused on some specific forms of fine-tempered table ware of Archaic age and/or Classic-Hellenistic age. This pottery has been recurrently brought to light in Solunto and it is furthermore suspected to be, at least to some extent, a local reproduction. Thus a representative number of samples corresponding in style and morphology to Greek-colonial productions were subjected to thin-section and chemical analysis. Simultaneously, the same analytical routine was applied to an Hellenistic black-gloss ware form (Campana A), the plate classified as Lamboglia 36, considering a number of samples coming from Solunto as well as from others close centers. In both the cases the comparative elaboration of petrographic and chemical data concerning the ceramic samples and local raw clays let us to distinguish between the products made in the Soluntoʼs kilns and the imports from Greece or the Greek colony of Himera or from the Gulf of Naples area (for the black-gloss ware samples). Therefore, a durability of the manufacture crosswise more than four centuries was demonstrated for the ceramic kilns which were working at Solunto, which were able to reproduce several fine ware forms testifying an high technological level.