Processions (Archaeopress 2023): 325–344 Introduction Cult activities, i.e., ceremonies with various functions and meanings, and religious ideology in general, are difficult fields of investigation during the Bronze Age. The identification of places and practices of worship, including possible processions, as well as the interpretation of clear ‘religious’ or ‘mythological’ iconography are especially challenging topics (Hodder 1982; Insoll 2004; Renfrew 1985, 1994). In the Italian Bronze Age, monumental sites exclusively devoted to cult activities are largely lacking. 1 Several explanations can be put forward for this lack of evidence, starting with the lower degree of social complexity of the local communities in comparison with the palatial societies of the Eastern Mediterranean. The role of the natural environment in eminent places— such as mountains, caves and gorges, bogs, springs, lakes, and rivers—in framing the performative religious expressions of ancient societies (Bradley 2000, 2017), and the substantial embeddedness of religious behavior in domestic and everyday social life (Bradley 2005) constitute further constraints that make it difficult to unravel religious sites and contexts from other classes of evidence. Even the close intertwining relationship between pure religious cult and funerary rites complicates the interpretation: early religious cults such as the cult of ancestors, typical of tribal societies and early farmers, seem to have been celebrated at tombs and cemeteries as part of the domain of death and the chthonic world. Evidence of cult in caves and other places with human remains further suggests that cult practices during the Italian Bronze Age cannot be easily separated from the rites of death. In the following paragraphs, a selection of archaeological contexts will be presented, for which it is possible to propose a link with worship activities or, more generally, ceremonial ones associated with performative activities including processions. Monumental Sites One class of evidence, which contrasts with the scantiness of sanctuaries and special religious buildings 1 In general, on religious evidence in protohistoric Italy, see Guidi 2014, with references; cf. Peroni 2004. in Italian protohistory, are the monumental cult places of the Alpine regions. Founded during the Copper Age, in the 4th–3rd millennia BC, these long-lasting sites—containing cultural expressions that include both funerary and pure religious practices—were still used in some cases during the Early Bronze Age and even later. As the funerary evidence belonged in a few cases to a later or secondary phase, while the evidence referring exclusively to a complex set of ceremonial activities is substantial from their foundation, their definition as ‘sanctuaries’ has been widely accepted (Barfield 1986; Casini and Fossati 2007; Dal Ri and Tecchiati 1994; de Marinis 2013; Poggiani Keller 2006). Menhir-like boulders, anthropomorphic stelae, and light wooden structures indicated by evidence of poles or posts characterized these mainland sites, which find parallels in both western and eastern Europe including the northern Aegean (Koukouli-Chrysanthaki 2007, with references). In the Alpine sanctuaries, performative ceremonial actions including processions are at times identified by the structural and topographic layout providing the alignment for poles/posts or spaced stelae, which, by tracing well-defined trajectories, suggest that ritual mobility formed a substantial part of the religious ceremonies. One of the most representative sites, S� Martin de Corléans near Aosta in the western Alps seems to demonstrate this phenomenon (Heyd and Harrison 2007; Mezzena 1997). At times, true monumental corridors or ‘sacred allées’ marked processional ways, which crossed the area running alongside huge stone platforms or cairns. Such an emphasis on paths and routes is widely attested in the eastern Alpine regions, namely in Trentino and Veneto. At the megalithic 4th millennium sanctuary at Sovizzo, in Veneto near Vicenza, a double-lane corridor, 22m long and 1.40–2m wide, appears to have directed the visitors in a round-trip procession focused on a stone cairn or tumulus with funerary remains (Bianchin Citton 2004, 2007; Bianchin Citton and Balista 2011). A ceremonial route may also have been included at the monumental site of Velturno-Tanzgasse, Alto- Adige (Dal Ri et al. 2004; Tecchiati 2013: 471, 2014; cf. Salzani 2015). As far as the Bronze Age is concerned, the huge sanctuary of Cles Campi Neri in Trentino is particularly relevant because of the long-lasting continuity of ritual activities (Endrizzi et al. 2011; Endrizzi and Degasperi Clues of Bronze Age Processions in the Central Mediterranean Marco Bettelli, Elisabetta Borgna and Sara Tiziana Levi