habitat rupestre.pdf - Società Friulana di Archeologia

MIGRATIONS AND INVASIONSR. CapraraArcheogruppo “E. Jacovelli” Massafra, Taranto, ItaliaImmigration and migration are different concepts: UmbertoEco has recently made a fine distinction. Immigration occurswhen some individuals (also many individuals, but still an irrelevantnumber of the original population) move from onecountry to another. This is the case of Italian and Irish peoplein America, or the Turks in Germany. Immigration canbe politically controlled, limited, encouraged, programmed oraccepted. Migrations are different. They can be both violentand pacific migrations, but they cannot be controlled. Migrationis when an entire population moves slowly from one placeto another; the most relevant element is the cultural changeof the new territories. Many migrations occurred on the East-West axis, and Caucasian people changed culture and biologicalheritage of natives. Barbarians migrated to the RomanEmpire, creating new Reigns and new cultures, the so calledRoman-Barbarian and Roman-German cultures.The European migration to the American continent hit theEast Coast, the Caribbean, Mexico and Southern America.This may be considered a politically programmed immigration,but European people did not undertake the native cultureand costumes, but they created a new civilization to which thesurvived natives had to bend.Some migrations were interrupted, as the migration of Arabpeople on the Iberian peninsula, where they were stopped.Some partial migrations were programmed, as the Europeansmoving to post colonial countries, changing the autochthonousculture.At the moment, there is no phenomenology of different migration,but migrations are surely different from immigrations.Immigrants are accepted with a political act, and they acceptthe costumes of their new country. No border police can arrestmigrants that will radically change the culture of their newcountry.These migration flows and invasions had effects on populationsand Countries, and they are important to understand therupestrian population in the Circum-Mediterranean area.The western historiography reports German migrations asBarbarian Invasions. These were a characteristic of the EarlyMiddle Age, since the last century of the Roman Empire. In401, Alaric I conducted the Visigoths. Attila, the Scourge ofGod, leaded the Huns, a Turkish-Mongolian population probablyfrom Siberia; he invaded Gaul from Illyria, and he wasdefeated by the Roman General Aetius in 451 and second definitivetime by Pope Leo I on the river Mincio in 452. Thedeath of Attila in 453 brought the Huns to settle in the actualBulgaria, Macedonia and on the river Volga. The Roman Empireended during the summer of 476: the Barbarian Odoacer,King of the Heruli, was the leader of heterogeneous groups ofpeople which already lived within the Empire boundaries. Hedeposed the young Emperor Romulus Augustulus, and governedItaly from 476 to 493. Odoacer conquered Sicily fromthe Visigoths, invaded Dalmatia and Northern Illyria. Theodoricthe Great leaded the Ostrogoths to conquer the actualSerbia, as approved by the Eastern Emperor Zeno. After, heinvaded Italy from East (488), passing through the Po Valley,and defeated the troops of Odoacer on the river Isonzo andin Verona. Odoacer, after the defeat and the treason by hisGenerals, took refuge in Ravenna, where he tried to create anew army. He was defeated again on the river Adda in August490, and he barricaded himself in Ravenna. After two years,he had to surrender for starvation. He was killed by treacheryand all his followers were massacred, so Theodoric had thefinal possession of Italy.There were also pacific migrations, as the settlement of Albaniansin the Reign of Naples. Considering the poor situationof the Balkan country, which was invaded by the Turks, theAragonese kings granted some privileges to the immigrants,as halved taxation for a long period, probably fifty years. TheAlbanian immigration caused a demographic expansion inSouthern Italy, especially in Puglia and Calabria, with a peakat the end of the 15 th century. In this period, the economy ofSouthern Italy and other European countries was developing.This society needed labourers to support the economic recovery.This is the reason that brought the Neapolitan Kings toFig. 1 Madonna della Scala ravine. Ovest side, front of the Sanctuary. Massafra (TA).31volumeRicerca_OK_2012-11-15.indd 31 16/11/2012 15:00:51