Bronze Age hut found on Lipari

Italian archaeologists on Friday found a Bronze Age hut during construction work in a town square on the southern Italian island of Lipari. Roman-era Hellenistic slabs were also unearthed, archaeologists said. 

Huts of the middle Bronze Age superimposed over those of the early Bronze Age on the Castello of Lipari [Credit: L. Bernabò Brea]

Lipari, a strategic port throughout history and now a popular holiday resort, is the largest of the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the north coast of Sicily. 

The island's main town is also called Lipari. Lipari has a permanent population of just over 11,000, rising to 20,000 during the tourist season. 

The Romans, who took the island from Carthage and used it as a base, retreat and place of exile, called it Lipara. 

The Greeks, who colonised it in 580 BC, called it Meligunis. 

Lipari is believed to have been inhabited since 5000 BC. 

In Neolithic times it was a source of obsidian, a hard black volcanic glass prized for its sharp cutting edge. 

Source: ANSA [February 17, 2012]