La Puglia meridionale tra il III e il II sec. a.C.: alcune considerazioni

In Southern Apulia, the archaeological research long considered primary objective the definition of preroman territorial pattern and settlement dynamics; in spite of this, the study of long-life towns and regional surveys offered the possibility of examining landscape transformations in the Salento area after the Roman conquest. This paper aims to discuss this matter. The topic will be dealt with some exempla, also looking at some better- known contexts relating to the period III-II century B.C. In consideration of an overall analysis we can recognise a substantial maintenance of the messapic settlement system after the bellum Sallentinum, while we can verify a more evident caesura after the Annibalic war.