An approach to Sicilian underwater prehistory

It is wise and necessary to say in advance that beside the well framed potential picture expressed by others, we don’t have till now any real datum concerning any kind of prehistoric archaeological evidence so far found in the sea in central Mediterranean and, particularly, in Sicily if we exclude the famous cave of Cosquer not far from Marseille, some traces of Neolithic settlements in Roussillon and Grotta Verde in northern Sardinia. The evidences from Palinuro and Malta cannot be interpreted as real evidence of underwater prehistoric sites because they need further investigations.
   Such consideration becomes more evident if we examine not the entire central Mediterranean region, but only the area around Sicily, between southern Italy and Aeolian islands, in the North, and Pantelleria, Lampedusa and Malta, in the South. Actually this topic of underwater prehistoric evidence of submerged settlements was widely faced in a mythological perspective. But this will be not my perspective because I will avoid to deal with the fascinating, but vague, question of the identification and position of Plato’s Atlantis, widely and deeply discussed by many authors either on the mythological/literary point of view, and on the morphological and geographical side.
   Even if we go into a detailed picture of this well defined central Mediterranean area, till now, beside some stone anchors, whose chronology could range between unidentified prehistoric and historical periods, and few isolated evidences of prehistoric and protohistoric objects so far found, we don’t have any real archaeological context of that period. The only consistent “prehistoric discovery” so far done in this area of Mediterranean was the controversial “wreck” of Pignataro, found nearby the eastern coast of Lipari.
   Taking into consideration this insufficient archaeological situation I’ll try to give some indications on the methodologies to be used, as well as on the most potential areas to be investigated with the aim to discover real traces of underwater prehistoric sites around Sicily. But it will be necessary, in order to fulfil a correct methodological and logical approach to this fascinating scientific domain, to proceed firstly with a comprehensive picture of the sporadic prehistoric and protohistoric evidences so far collected from the sea, secondly with the knowledge of palaeo-geographic background of the area under exam and finally with the indication of a research’s strategy and perspective.
   In this frame the recent discovery of two fossilized molars of Elephas mnaidrensis, in the sea not far from the south-western Sicilian shore will open new research horizons.