Archaeometric characterization of prehistoric grinding tools from Milazzo Bronze Age settlement (Sicily, Italy)

In this contribution we present the archeometric characterization of archaeological grinding stones, made of volcanic rocks, coming from the “Piazza XXV Aprile” archaeological site of Milazzo (Messina, Sicily). The settlement age was attributed-on the basis of archaeological remains and pottery typologies-to the Messina-Ricadi facies, dated to the end of Early Bronze Age, in the half of II millennium BC (Martinelli & Tigano, 2012).The studied objects are manual grinding tools classified as saddle-quern type and are composed by two stones: an active tool, usually called handstone/pestle, working with a linear movement of the hands on a passive surface, formed by a grinding slab or grindstone (Storck & Teague, 1952). The archaeometric studies of prehistoric grinding tools from archaeological sites in the Mediterranean area are important for identifying the production sites and tracing the historic trade routes. To reach this objective, a multidisciplinary analytical approach, including SEM-EDX, XRPD and XRF, has been employed. The raw materials of the studied millstones are mainly volcanic rocks characterized by calcalkaline and K-alkaline affinities with volcanic arc geochemical signature. Only one sample is made by a basalt belonging to the Na-alkaline series and showing an intraplate signature. Comparison with literature data of similar rocks allowed to constrain the volcanic origin of the exploited lavas. Instead, the intraplate-type raw material came from Mt. Etna Volcano (Sicily). The arc-type volcanic rocks are mostly trachi-andesites, basaltic –andesites and one rhyolite. Although most of them came from the Aeolian Arc, a provenance of some samples from the Aegean Arc cannot be excluded. This could be the most probable provenance area for the rhyolite sample. Overall results evidenced that Sicily, from the prehistory, provided abundant raw material for the construction of the most primitive grinding stone sand of the more technological millstones of Roman Age (e.g., Di Bella et al., 2016). Our results confirm that, in the Bronze Age, the contacts between populations of eastern Sicily/Aeolian Islands and the Aegean ones were very active.