La penisola salentina: elementi di discontinuità nelle dinamiche di sfruttamento del territorio in età messapica e in età romana

Analysis of the Salento peninsula agrarian landscape, in particular of Lecce province, aimed at defining the possible transformations which marked various moments of the Roman conquest. Data of the rural settlement during the IV-III century B.C. have been compared with the ones of the II century B.C. The resulting data of the surveys seem to show the almost total lack of little “messapic farms” datable to V-III century B.C.; on the contrary, a systematic occupation of the countryside was found in Oria area. Presence of farms is reported since the II century B.C. and it could be the result of the new region arrangement defined by the Roman conquest, which also caused the realization of a vast system of centuriation involving the whole Salento peninsula. Data of the GIS developed by the Laboratory of Ancient Topography and Photogrammetry (University of Salento), results of archaeological sistematic survey, have been used to explain the dynamics of the region occupation and exploitation