Il distanziatore di fili tipo Kakovatos e altri elementi in ambra come indicatori di scambi ad ampio raggio durante l'età del Bronzo

The study of several amber artefacts can help to identify long-distance exchange and cultural contacts between different populations. An example are multi-drilled plates, also called spacer-beads. These are ‘simple’ artefacts, revealing only holes parallel to one another or fan-arranged (type 1), and ‘complex’ artefacts, characterized by a series of holes with different orientation (types 2-5). Among these are the Kakovatos type (type 2), illustrating connections between northern and central Europe and the Mediterranean world, involving the British Wessex Culture, the central-European Tumulus Culture and the late-Helladic world. Although one of the ‘amber routes’ speculated for the diffusion of this type crosses part of north-eastern Italy and continues along the Adriatic coasts, the Kakovatos type spacer-bead has not yet been found, or recognized, in our territory. However, there are exemplars belonging to types 4 and 5. Although sporadic, these elements suggest the presence of Italic populations in this exchange network. This theory would be evocatively supported by a bone spacer-bead from Scarceta, dated to the beginning of the Late Bronze Age: its incised decorative pattern recalls the Kakovatos type variant B in amber and hence appears to reveal a ‘memory of the past’.