Alianello

Alianello is the only frazione of the comune of Aliano, in the province of Matera. It includes two settlements, Alianello di Sotto and Alianello Nuovo, which according to the 2001 Istat census had 74 and 196 inhabitants respectively.

The history of this settlement is tied to the main town and dates back to around 1200. The village grew in the early decades of the twentieth century, when people moved here from Aliano after a large landslide damaged many houses. Prehistoric evidence has been found in the area, namely traces of human activity dating back to the 5th millennium BC. Of particular importance for understanding the native communities that lived in the valley in the early historical period, partly at the same time as the first Greek settlements on the Tyrrhenian and Ionian coasts, is the vast cemetery explored in the Cazzaiola area, with more than a thousand pit graves from the 7th and 6th centuries BC.

The 1980 Irpinia earthquake also struck this area, and many houses in the old village were declared unsafe. The population left the old centre and moved to the new hamlets of Alianello di Sotto (about 5 km away) and Alianello Nuovo (about 500 m away). Today old Alianello is completely uninhabited.

Text: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · translated from Italian