Visitors to the tiny hilltop village of Aliano in Southern Italy are very unlikely to forget it. The surrounding countryside is as desolate as a lunar landscape and the village is perched precariously on top of calanchi which are deforested, sandy soiled, rocky hills. In 1980, a major earthquake shook the region of Basilicata and rendered many of Aliano’s clay buildings uninhabitable. Young people have moved away to find their fortune and the population now numbers less than