The aboriginal inhabitants of Sicily, long absorbed into the population, were tribes known to the ancient Greek writers as the Elymians, the Sicanians, and the Sicels, the last being an Indo-European-speaking people of possible Italic affiliation, who migrated from the Italian mainland (likely from the Amalfi Coast or Calabria via the Strait of Messina) during the second millennium BC, after whom the island was named.

They wore basic clothing made of wool, plant fibre, papyrus, esparto grass, animal skins, palm leaves, leather and fur, and created everyday tools, as well as weapons, using metal forging, woodworking and pottery.

In Sicily's earlier prehistory, there is also evidence of trade with the Capsian and Iberomaurusian mesolithic cultures from Tunisia, with some lithic stone sites attested in certain parts of the island.

[27][28][29] Another archaeological site, originally identified by Paolo Orsi on the basis of a particular ceramic style, is the Castelluccio culture which dates back to the Ancient Bronze Age (2000 B.C.

"[32] "Sites related to the Castelluccio culture were present in the villages of south-east Sicily, including Monte Casale, Cava/Quarry d'Ispica, Pachino, Niscemi, Cava/Quarry Lazzaro, near Noto, of Rosolini, in the rocky Byzantine district of coastal Santa Febronia in Palagonia, in Cuddaru d' Crastu (Tornabé-Mercato d'Arrigo) near Pietraperzia, where there are remains of a fortress partly carved in stone, and – with different ceramic forms – also near Agrigento in Monte Grande.

In the area around Ragusa, there have been found evidences of mining among the ancient residents of Castelluccio; tunnels excavated by the use of basalt bats allowed the extraction and production of highly sought flints.

Some dolmens, dated back to this same period, with sole funeral function, are found in different parts of Sicily and attributable to a people not belonging to the Castelluccio Culture.

Their (Palici) centre of worship was originally based on three small lakes that emitted sulphurous vapors in the Palagonian plains, and as a result these twin brothers were associated with geysers and the underworld.

[34] They were most likely either the sons of the native fire god Adranos, or, as Polish historian "Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak" suggests, the Palici may derive from the old Proto-Indo-European mytheme of the divine twins.

The Cyclopes, giant one-eyed humanoid creatures in classical Greco-Roman mythology, known as the maker of Zeus' thunderbolts, were traditionally associated with Sicily and the Aeolian Islands.

In the 3rd century BC, the Messanan Crisis, caused by Mamertine mercenaries from Campania, when the city-states of Messina (Carthaginian-owned) and Syracuse (Dorian-owned) were being constantly raided and pillaged by Mamertines, during the period (282–240 BC) when Central, Western and Northeast Sicily were put under Carthaginian rule, motivated the intervention of the Roman Republic into Sicilian affairs, and led to the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage.

By the end of the war in 242 BC, and with the death of Hiero II, all of Sicily except Syracuse was in Roman hands, becoming Rome's first province outside of the Italian peninsula.

While his army was being transported by ship to mainland Italy, Pyrrhus' navy was destroyed by the Carthaginians at the Battle of the Strait of Messina, with 98 warships sunk or disabled out of 110.

The ancient historian Diodorus Siculus who wrote and recorded the monumental universal history Bibliotheca historica, and the ancient Doric-Greek revolutionary scientist, inventor and mathematician Archimedes who anticipated modern calculus, and analysis by applying methods of infinitesimals and exhaustion to rigorously derive and prove the range of geometric theorems, and invented the innovative Archimedean screw, compound pulleys, and defensive war machines to protect his native town of Syracuse from invasions, were both born, grew up in, lived and died in Sicily.

However, they soon lost these newly acquired possessions, except for one toehold in Lilybaeum, to Odoacer (an Arian Christian Barbarian statesman & general of possible East Germanic & Hunnic descent, and client king under Zeno whose reign over Italy marked the Fall of the Western Roman Empire) in 476 and completely to the Ostrogothic conquest of Sicily by Theodoric the Great which began in 488; although the Goths were Germanic, Theodoric sought to revive Roman culture and government and allowed freedom of religion.

After he got promoted into the Exarchate, Theophylact marched from Sicily to Rome for unknown reasons, a decision which angered the local Roman soldiers living there, however the newly elected Pope John VI, was able to calm them down.

[60] While Theophylact was still Exarch, Byzantine Emperor Justinian II seized all the leading citizens and officials of Ravenna at a local banquet, and dragged them abroad a ship to Constantinople.

The Strategos of Sicily was also able to exercise some control over the autonomous duchies of Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi, depending on the local political situation or faction at the time.

After Elpidius's forces were militarily defeated by Empress Irene's large fleet dispatched in Sicily, he, along with his lieutenant, the dux of Calabria named Nikephoros, defected to the Abbasid Caliphate, where he was posthumously acknowledged as rival emperor.

Jawhar the Sicilian, the Fatimid general of Slavic origins that led the conquest of Egypt, under Caliph Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah, was born and grew up in Ragusa, Sicily.

After a revolt was suppressed, the Fatimid Caliph Al-Mansur Billah appointed a member of the Kalbid dynasty, Al-Hasan ibn Ali al-Kalbi, as First Emir of Sicily.

Ibn Hawqal, a Baghdadi merchant who visited Sicily in 950, commented that a walled suburb called the Kasr (the palace) was the center of Palermo, with the great Friday mosque on the site of the later Roman Catholic cathedral.

In fact, it was during the reign of this Hohenstaufen king Frederick II, that the poetic form known as a sonnet was invented by Giacomo da Lentini, the head Poet, Teacher and Notary of the Sicilian School for Poetry.

After the unification of Italy and the Fascist era, a wave of Sicilian nationalism led to the adoption of the Statute of Sicily, under which the island has become an autonomous region.

[67] From the late medieval period into the modern era, Aragonese, Spaniards and French ruled over and left a minor impact on the island, while Albanians settled and formed communities which still exist today known as the Arbereshe.

In Sicily, there are three metropolitan areas: Overall, there are fifteen cities and towns with a population above 50,000 people, these are: The most common Sicilian names are Giuseppe, Maria and Salvatore.

This was a literary language in Sicily created under the auspices of Frederick II and his court of notaries or Magna Curia which, headed by Giacomo da Lentini, also gave birth to the Sicilian School, widely inspired by troubadour literature.

The Siculish dialect is the macaronic "Sicilianization" of English language words and phrases by immigrants from Sicily to the United States in the early 20th century.

[133][134] In more recent years, many immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries like Pakistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia have arrived on Sicily.

The Jewish Sicilian community remained until the Aragonese rulers' Queen Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, expelled them in the year 1493 with the Alhambra Decree.