Osservazioni metodologiche sulla 'religione' come chiave interpretativa della documentazione proto- e preistorica di Valcamonica

The article presents some observations about the methodologies used for the study of 'religious' expressions within the proto- and prehistoric cultures of Valcamonica. In fact, 'religion' constitutes the main interpretative key for many of the local archaeological finds, both on the rock and not. Then, the main scientific studies of G. Marro and R. Battaglia (first half of the 20th century) are analyzed, those of E. Anati and his school, but also of those who distinguished themselves from it (A. Fossati, A. Priuli) or 'classical' archaeologists, such as R. de Marinis, F. Fedele and R. Poggiani Keller. Thus, approaches emerge carried out according to specific instances of palethnology or anthropology, structuralism, sociology, functionalism, phenomenology, up to involving scholars of religions such as J. Ries. Finally, we evaluate the opportunity of the fruitful recourse to the philological-comparative method of the Italian School of the History of Religions (R. Pettazzoni, U. Bianchi, A. Brelich).