San Miceli : An Early Christian Rural Settlement in Western Sicily

The history of the settlement of San Miceli takes place in a period of great changes from the 4th to the 7th centuries which lead to the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the early Middle Ages. The main impulse to this progressive evolution was provided by the affirmation of Christianity which, in addition to modifying the ways in which the Roman people thought and lived, favored the transformation of the empire's territorial organization: the abandonment or transformation of the villas, the simplification of the settlements in centralized villages, and the construction of places of worship. With the richness of its archaeological material, the variety of its buildings and its modified chronology in contrast to those proposed in previous academic debates, San Miceli contributes to the understanding of these changes, with particular reference to the characteristics of its rural settlement organization within the context of Christianization, the form and method of its occupation, its agricultural and handcraft traditions, its artifact typologies and architectural construction techniques and, to a certain extent, its economic and social systems.