Archaeology on the Apulian – Lucanian Border

The broad valley of the Bradano river and its tributary, the Basentello, separates the Apennine mountains in Lucania from the limestone plateau of the Murge in Apulia in southeast Italy. This book aims to explain how the pattern of settlement and land use changed in the valley over the whole period from the Neolithic to the late me

The broad valley of the Bradano river and its tributary the Basentello separates the Apennine mountains in Lucania from the limestone plateau of the Murge in Apulia in South East Italy. For millennia the valley has functioned both as a cultural and political divide between the two regions, and as a channel for new ideas transmitted from South to North or vice versa depending on the political and economic conditions of the time. Archaeology on the Apulian – Lucanian Border aims to explain how the pattern of settlement and land use changed in the valley over the whole period from Neolithic to Late Medieval, taking account of changing environmental conditions, and setting the changes in a broader political, social and cultural context. There are three levels of focus. The first is on the results of a field survey (1996-2006) in the Basentello valley by teams from the Universities of Alberta, Edinburgh, and Bari, directed by the authors. The second concerns the discoveries of earlier field surveys in the late 1960s and early 1970s undertaken in connection with excavations on Botromagno near Gravina in Puglia. The third is a much broader synthesis of the results of recent scholarship using archaeological, epigraphic and literary sources to reconstruct an archaeological history of the valley and the surrounding area. The creation of a vast imperial estate at Vagnari around the end of the 1st century BC and its long-lasting impact on the pattern of settlement in the area is a significant theme in the later chapters of the book.

Preface ;

Acknowledgements ;

Section I: General introduction ;

Section II: The Basentello Valley field survey 1996-2008: An overview ;

Section III: Diachronic interpretations ;

Chapter I. The Palaeolithic period ;

Chapter II. The Neolithic period ;

Chapter III. The Eneolithic Period ;

Chapter IV. The Bronze Age ;

Chapter V. The Final Bronze Age (ca. 1200-1000BC) / Early Iron Age I (ca. 1000-750BC) ;

Chapter VI. The Early Iron Age II (Period Gravina II) ca. 750–675 BC and Middle Iron Age (ca. 675–500 BC) ;

Chapter VII. The Late Iron Age: (Lucanian/Late Peucetian period) ;

Chapter VIII. The Hellenistic Period ;

Chapter IX. The Roman Imperial Period ;

Chapter X. The Late Roman Empire ;

Chapter XI. Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages ;

Chapter XII. The Middle Ages. Late 7th to 13/14th century ;

Section IV: List of sites ;

Section V: Catalogue of artefacts ;

Section VI: The older surveys ;

Figures for artefacts ;

Plates for artefacts ;

Bibliography ;

Appendix: Le anfore dalla valle del Basentello: ricostruire la rete dei commerci e dei consumi delle derrate

• By (author) Alastair Small
• By (author) Carola Small

'In summary, this is an impressive publication that simultaneously offers new primary data and a truly detailed, wide-ranging and up-to-date regional synthesis. It is also a fitting monument to the authors’ sustained fieldwork and scholarship in this region over a period of more than 50 years.' – Robert Witcher (2023): Medieval Archaeology vol 67.2

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‘Il volume si rivela un sapido compendio archeologico espresso nella prospettiva ‘di lunga durata’ e applicato a una macroregione che occupa il cuore della Murgia, ma protende al vasto bacino mediterraneo. ‘ [translated:The volume proves to be a rich archaeological compendium expressed from a "long duration" perspective, applied to a macroregion at the heart of the Murgia, but extending to the wider Mediterranean basin.]– C. Silvio Fioriello (2024): GNOMON 96. Volume 8.

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