Arbëreshë Migration in the Sibaritide (Calabria, South Italy): landscape archaeology, past mobility, and present-day community identity

Since the early 1990s, the Groningen Institute of Archaeology has carried out surveys and excavations in the Sibaritide (Calabria, South Italy) with a strong interest in the study of mobility based on changes in material culture and settlement patterns related to Bronze Age Aegean, Greek and Roman presence. In a newly planned archaeological project, the authors aim to open a window on the multicultural interaction in the landscapes of the Sibaritide from the mediaeval to the modern period, particularly related to the arrival and enduring presence of Arbëreshë communities. The project will start out in the summer of 2023 with an archaeological survey of the landscapes surrounding the Arbëreshë villages of Civita/Çifti and Frascineto/Frasnita where the Groningen Institute of Archaeology already conducts excavations of Bronze Age sites. The local Arbëreshë communities will be involved in the project through participatory practices and ethnographic listening. This approach will help us to trace the history of migration and the strong sense of place of the contemporary Arbëreshë people within a shared process of knowledge production. With our new project we hope to support an inclusive long-term narrative of the cultural encounters in the Sibaritide in which the local landscape is valued as heritage conceptualised in archaeological and ethnographic terms, but also in the stories and memories of the local communities