Paesaggio e Mobilità nel Sud-Est Italiano: i risultati preliminari delle fasi pre-protostoriche della Roca Archaeological Survey

While mobility has always been a fundamental aspect of the Mediterranean communities throughout history, the exploration of this topic has primarily relied on excavation data rather than evidence from landscape archaeology. The aim of this article is to examine the transformation of the landscape in one of the key centers for mobility and interaction during Italian protohistory, spanning from the Late Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age. In order to explore such a theme, we have turned to Salento, an area that has been at the centre of long-term mobility dynamics since the earliest moments of human occupation. The work of a team from the University of Bologna has focused, in particular, on the surface record of the landscape surrounding the site of Roca Vecchia. This settlement which has produced some of the most imponent bronze-age stone architecture in continental Italy, represents also one of the most important international mobility hubs in the protohistory of the Central Mediterranean, having yielded about half of all the Aegean-type pottery found outside of the Aegean world, inclusive of both direct import and (starting from the Middle Bronze Age) local imitations. Through methods which involved field walking and mapping of visibility through 20x20m units, we have managed to explore a large portion of the territory surrounding Roca Vecchia, recovering over 70.000 artefacts. For the earlier prehistory a potential area of frequentation datable to Upper paleolithic/Mesolithic has been located in proximity of the course of the seasonal river which fed the Tamari lagoon. For later protohistoric times, a dual trend emerges, with a deep hinterland showing very little in terms of early frequentation and a coastal area showing a reversed trend, with abundant finds. Although any attempt at precisely dating such trends is only tentative at present, it seems that during the peak period of expansion and intense contact at Roca Vecchia, signs of human presence can be identified in a much larger area than the one enclosed by the Bronze Age fortifications.