Filicudi island is very old. The signs of the times, different peoples who lived here, are etched throughout the island.
The first area to be Filicudi was inhabited in Neolithic times (BC), the Plain of Porto: at the strip of sea that connects the mountains of Capo Graziano to the rest of the island.
The Neolithic settlement grew up around a thriving and profitable business: the manufacture of obsidian, a volcanic stone, black and shiny, which was used in the manufacture of jewelry.
Five thousand years ago people Filicudi therefore belonged to the ancient culture of Diana. This period ceramic fragments remain, preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Lipari (in Filicudi there is a small detachment of the Museum on the waterfront of the port).
For the people of Filicudi, the situation of prosperity had to change quickly, however, because ‘the flat port, difficult to defend from attack by sea, the Aeolian moved on Mount Capo Graziano and Hillock, both in defensive positions.
The settlement dates back to Cape Graziano protoelladico. Today you can admire the remains of thirty circular stone houses arranged in a herringbone pattern. On this point more ‘top of Capo Graziano finally stands the ancient sacrificial altar of these people, so advanced to be imported Mycenaean pottery.
But we have to wait to 2000 BC Why become a bank Filicudi fundamental Mycenaean trade. During this period he developed a thriving culture of Capo Graziano (in addition to the village, is a necropolis in Montagnola), which extends to all the islands.
The outposts of Mycenae in Filicudi they stayed until 1430 BC about. Then the people of Cape Graziano were supplanted by new residents: the culture Milazzese. In this culture we hear through the discovery, which occurred in Panarea, the amphora with dead huddled inside. For the culture of Capo Graziano was the beginning of the decline.
But the episode that sign ‘the island was the arrival of Ausoni people of mainland origin of the Apennines. The villages were destroyed and filicudari, from the fourteenth century BC, the island was’ uninhabited. One pitfall of just 10 square kilometers in the sea.
The new peoples who lived Filicudi came in the sixth / fifth century BC, were Greeks. Together the ships arrival ‘civilization. The settlers have left Cnidus funerary inscription discovered at Zucco Grande, and traces of an extraordinary Byzantine necropolis on the back of the port.
Roman wrecks have rather different with entire cargo on board (also visited) and the remains of Roman houses to bits.
Filicudi was then repopulated. A quote attributed to Pliny says that the island was used for grazing herds of cattle and other islands with Filicuri (“… being suitable for herds of cattle to other islands).
The subsequent history is lost in oblivion. Filicudi was probably inhabited in the Norman period, but what is certain is the effort of man through the centuries to tame the savage power of nature.
Dozens and dozens of terraces, from sea level to the top of the mountain, bear testimony dell’agricolutura development. Today the line (terraces) are barely visible, almost streaks of land bounded by stone walls. The prickly pear, once used to demarcate the borders, have increased, while the warm wind from Africa brought the absinthe, which covers with its exotic fragrance sides of the island.
