Ancient coastal landscape of Protected Marine Area of Porto Cesareo (Le): recent researches

In the Protected Marine Area of Porto Cesareo (Lecce, Italy) various submerged and semi-submerged evidences have been highlighted/picked out by some recent notifications and preliminary surveys carried out by the Dipartimento di Beni Culturali – Università del Salento, in close collaboration with the Protected Marine Area: - a navis lapidaria wreck, with a cargo of monumental marble columns from Eubea (Greece), of the Roman Imperial age; - various scattered and decontextualized finds (amphorae, anchor stocks, pottery sherds); - a beached wreck, probably Medieval, at - 2 m.s.l. and 150 m from the coastline; - some submerged structures, located between the Scalo di Furno promontory and the opposite islet, at - 2.20 m.s.l; according to the building technique and the morphology, to the presence of Middle Bronze age ware, and mostly to the sea level relative rising values, we could identify them with the submerged part of the Bronze age Scalo di Furno settlement on the headland; - remains of structures (walls, buildings, burial areas) and finds of Roman age along the shoreline of T. Chianca headland and the close peninsula, partially submerged and eroded. The last three evidences allow us to hypothesize an ancient coastal landscape significantly different and a “dynamic” outline during the centuries.