Evidence of cross-cultural interactions between the central Mediterranean and the Aegean from the late 3rd to the early 2nd millennia BC (2100/2050 - 1700/1650 BC)

Connections between the Eastern and Central Mediterranean in the period corresponding with the Late Helladic in the Aegean have long been widely debated. In the last decades inter- actions between these areas in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC have also become the focus of interest. Yet the period in-between remains somehow mar- ginal. This paper aims at reconsidering available data for this last period, when communities in the various regions were increasingly growing more structurally diversified. Evidence of actual exchanged goods/materials is quite limited, yet various traces point to the transmission of innovative production techniques and cultural patterns related to diverse spheres of activities. The main point to be made is that this period witnessed the transition from a traditional pattern of maritime contacts (based on nonsystematic interactions and movement of small human groups, ongoing since the Neolithic) to a new model (characterised by the establishment of systematic exchange network(s), typical of the Late Bronze Age in the Aegean). This latter then became the prevailing pattern. The main areas analysed are southern Italy and Sicily, including the small adjacent islands, the Western Balkans and the Aegean. The subject is explored from both synchronic and diachronic points of view, to highlight similarities and differences among the diverse central Mediterranean contexts so interacting and to understand how patterns of maritime interactions changed trough time.