 everyone. And I would like to start thanking the organizer of this very stimulating session. I'm very happy to be here to show you some pictures of Sicilian rock shelters. The Reparo de Santo Mazzo is a place right in the center part of the island. It's in the Anna province and is located just a few kilometers southwest of the main town, which is the Anna. The focus of my presentation will be the discussion of Santo Mazzo rock shelter used as the focus to understand, trying to understand the development, the constitution of ritual landscapes through the periods of concentrating on the second first millennium. In central part of Sicily, the constitution of sacred and ritual spaces can be understood using two different ways. One is the use of artificial caves, which means on the left, the slide, the rock-cut tombs. The starting from the third millennium are basically covering all the limestone, sandstone, flesh, outcrops, and cliffs. The second aspect is the use of natural place, rock shelters and caves. And according, you know, a very fortunate definition by Ruth Whitehouse, evidence of an underground religion. This is carried out during the late Neolithic, during the corporate age in Sicily, using caves with the position of special objects, painted potteries, bell beakers, metal objects in the third millennium, starting for the third millennium. Things start to change during the early Bronze Age, when caves have been abandoned for the use of ritual activities, but this has been carried out now in more open spaces. The santuario of La Muculufa in central Sicily is dating to the early Bronze Age. It's an open space on the top of a high cliff with the use and the position of painted, very peculiar painted anthropomorphic pottery. In this respect, the use of artificial and natural spaces, the santuario of the rock shelter is quite peculiar. The site is placed just south-west position in the Tocicola Valley, which is a small river starting from Enna and flowing for about 15 kilometers before to reach the Imera Medigionale, which is the longest river in Sicily, cutting into the entire island. This valley has been explored from 1996 until 2006 for 10 years in a project, a joint project with Leicester University and with my good friend, Mark Puccini, that unfortunately passed away two years ago. We choose this area because in a short space, about 15 kilometers, we have a different kind of landscapes, natural landscapes. The upper part is very urbanized near Enna, but it's passing near one of the natural lakes, like the Pergusa Lake, which is also the center of intense archaeological and paleological research and gives us a good sequence in terms of paleoclimatic and paleo-vegetation reconstruction. The lower part of the valley is characterized by a series of rolling hills just before reaching the conjunction of the Tocicola River with the Imera. The middle part of its course, the Tocicola has created this two kilometers long gorge excavating the Pleiocene sandstones, the Calcarenici di Capodarsa. At the end of this gorge, it's long about two kilometers, it's wide about 8-90 meters, we have a series of very large rock shelters. This is the archaeological map that came up after almost 10 years of excavation of surveys in the area. We were able to recognize almost 30 new archaeological sites going from Prehistory down to the medieval period. Our rock shelter is number 23. To get plus, we are also an important part of our survey project that is regarding the historical buildings. We were able to document and to study a series of structures dedicated to the agricultural and rural development of the territory from the 18th century up to the present day. As I said, the rock shelter is placed at the end of the gorge. On the west side, there are two smaller shelters which have been occupied since the beginning of 19th century as documented by some archival sources, by rural buildings used by shepherds and farmers. The largest one is Riparounu which is on the eastern side, eastern bank of the river which is just flowing just down here. This is a very large shelter, it's about 70 meters long and it's been between 15-20 meters large. As you can see here, there is a series of rural buildings going back to the 19th century, including a water mill, Molino Nuavo, that has been in use since the middle of 19th century until the first part of 20th century before it had been abandoned. When we discovered the site in 1999 with Mark, who was just walking and we were documenting, we've been very excited to find this historical archaeological monument. The surprise is that when we were walking on the surface of this shelter, we started to find prehistoric and quick shepherds on the surface. So in the year 2000 and 2001, we had the first test pit season, opening a series of trenches in the innermost part of the shelter and also opening other shepherds. And then in 2010, we had a proper excavation with the Leicester University, the Enna University, at the time I was teaching at that small university in central Sicily, and we had the possibility to explore this area A and B. All this part documented so far comes not from the excavation, but the premises of crevices just opened below the shelter from where we found a series of painted early Bronze Age vessels. And particularly the lower vessel is a miniaturized pedestal bowl, which in Sicily normally is used in a funerary context. The problem is that these crevices are quite dangerous in terms of safety and exploration, so we were able only to visit them very rapidly and collect material that we found on the surface. We needed to have a proper safe condition to work and to open a trench there. But this is the, and this is dating to the late third millennium, early second millennium. In, as I said, in the year 2000, that trench one was two meters by one meters, and we reached one meter and 70 of depth. On the bottom, which is being created by a series of boulders, probably the collapse of the roof at the beginning of the second millennium for a problem of a rigidity regime of the climate that has created this series of collapse that we have been documenting in all the gorge. The first archaeological levels above the boulders is dating to the middle of second millennium. And it's quite right by the presence of gray and plain wares. They attributed to the local the Tintar and Vallelunga style, but includes also a series of deer antlers deposited on the floor. This is the juvenile one. And the archaeological analysis demonstrates that the most part of the final assemblage was composed by sheep and goats and pigs, but mostly young animals, but with also large proportions of the red deer, of deer. After this period, there was a moment of abandonment of the, of the, of the shelter. And the microbiological analysis carried out together with James Woodward from Manchester University, were able to evidence the fact that the late early Bronze Age and the following phases, the late Bronze Age, the shelter was used as probably a pastoral site for, for stabbling animals. But the presence of red deers deposited antlers deposited the quality and the deposition of the painted pottery suggests a possible use either as a funerary or for ritual purpose. But one thing that could in a way prove is the presence during the late Bronze Age, which is these levels here, of an enormous quantities of tartar, of Teresa tartar that has butchering marks and signs of burning of the carapax, the skeleton of the, of the tartars. After a period of abandonment, the gray layer here, the shelter has been reoccupied during the, well this is already, there is a fireplace dating to the late Bronze Age, near, you see here in the photo plan, nearby there is a small pit filled up with the pantalican or the late Bronze Age wares and animal bones. After a period of abandonment, the site has been occupied during the Iron Age in a thick layer of ashes characterized by the burning of organic and wooden structures probably used for the stabbling. There's been a series of pits and post holes that don't have any apparent organization. And then during the, the last phase we have documented inside the, the shelter is, is the Greek archaic period dating from the 7th to the late 6th beginning of 5th century ABC. When the site has been monumentalized and probably definitely used as a ritual space. Is a, there is a large wall, we expose only, well only we expose about five meters long part of this wall, which is a circular wall, a kind of enclosure, which is the limiting and closing in the inner part, part of the, the shelter, which is very similar to other indigenous Greek archaic sanctuaries in Sicily. Policello is the most famous one with these round buildings, but also Montagnoli, Collemadore, Sabucina. So the round buildings are always connected with the ritual use. Furthermore, inside the external, the internal part of the area separated by the enclosure wall has been paved and on top of the, below and above the floor we have the position of the entrance. So it's a tradition continuing. And in the inner part we have a series of pits with the position, you see here, kind of lot of the position, with this piece filled up with intentionally broken vessels, Greek and indigenous production, and animal bones, mainly young pigs. Turtles are still used, but we don't have any evidence of watering of consumption turtles during the Greek period. Just to rapidly go into the conclusion, reading of the, so I'm trying to, it is possible to underline the strong similarity of the St. Tomasso and closure with the round shrines of Policello and others indigenous sanctuaries of central and western Sicily. Formally these structures and the deposition is posed in the upper layers of St. Tomasso, showing an evident affinity with these other contemporaneous sanctuaries. From a social and religious point of view, however, it is possible to underline some differences. Differently from the other cold places, in fact, the shelter is the only shrine placed outside an urban, urban context. It's either location within the Torci Coda Gorge, distant from the main communication routes, make this site accessible only intentionally, by whom had the specific reason and the will to reach it. The site is being placed in a context with a very dense occupation during the indigenous and the Greek archaic period, and particularly is placed near a Kotsuyukulia, which is one of the sites which have been located through the Torci Coda Valley Project, which yielded a clear evidence of Greek occupation dating from the 7th to the 5th century. It's probably a small Greek frugion, a military post controlling non-style indigenous territory. While the very sanctuary is known in central western Sicily, were actively used by local elites in order to establish and to consolidate the hierarchical status and power within their communities, influenced by the developing alienization process, the Santa Masa Shrine was probably used directly by the Greek colonists as meeting point for interaction and exchange with indigenous communities. A social and a religious liminal place acting as a distribution locust between the economy or inner Sicily and the coast. Thank you.