Post-prehistoric changes in the Tavoliere coastlands

This thesis is concerned with related aspects of physical and settlement changes in the coastal portion of the largest lowland in peninsular Italy, the Tavoliere of Poggia (Apulia). It is an empirical study, summarising the state of archaeological and geographical information, offering new archaeological and sedimentary evidence, and reassessing many interpretations concerning settlement, economic activity and the environment from the mid-Holocene and Early Neolithic times to the present. Formerly there were a number of lagoons in the coastlands, wide open to the Adriatic or almost wholly closed by the barrier island. Today much of this is cultivated land. Before the implications of such a physical change on past settlement and economy can be assessed, the ancient settlement patterns have to be discovered; the buried topography revealed; and the nature and phasing of the sedimentation that has all but obliterated the lagoons outlined. These are the main objectives in the present study. A perhaps wider range of source material than is orthodox in historical geography is investigated to these ends. The study of written and cartographic sources, from the Roman period onward, is intimately combined with the study of field evidence both archaeological and sedimentary. In this way, much of the evidence falls in to place as a better understanding of the former physical environment is achieved. For instance, cognizance of the openness of one lagoon leads to a more accurate interpretation of the route directions of the Roman itineraria and a better coincidence of archaeological and written evidences for lost settlements. But, bearing in mind that the thesis is essentially an interim statement on an active and longterm research programme, no conclusions are attempted although the study has implications reaching beyond the local area. Instead, the three important factors of change - climatic change, changes in sea level, and the anthropogenic factor - are introduced as the basis of the next stage in the research programme.