ITALY AND ITS ISLANDS 



decreases. The sitting posture is still frequent, 

 though occasionally the body lies flat on one side 

 with the legs slightly contracted. Flint is now 

 rare, but objects of bronze are plentiful. The 

 local painted pottery has almost entirely given 

 place to simpler yet better wares with occasional 

 Mycenean importations. 



It is impossible to decide whether this Sicilian 

 civilization ought to be included under the term 

 megalithic. If, as seems probable, the idea of 

 megalithic building was brought to Europe by 

 the immigration of a new race it is possible that 

 a branch of this race entered Sicily. In that case 

 I should prefer to think that they came not at 

 the beginning of the First Siculan Period as we 

 know it, but rather earlier. Certain vases found 

 with neolithic burials in a cave at Villafrati and 

 elsewhere in Sicily resemble the pottery usually 

 found in megalithic tombs ; one of them is in fact 

 a bell-shaped cup, a form typical of megalithic 

 pottery. It is thus possible that an immigration 

 of megalithic people into Sicily took place during 

 the stone age, definitely later than the period of 

 the earliest neolithic remains on the island, but 

 earlier than that of such sites as the Castelluccio 

 cemetery. This, however, is and will perhaps 

 remain a mere conjecture, though it is quite 

 possible that there are in the interior of Sicily 

 dolmens which have not yet come to the notice 

 of the archaeologist ; in this connection it is worth 

 g 81 



