| dc.description.abstract | This research concerns the population dynamics of the territory between the Sele and Lao rivers. The territory includes the southern part of Campania, the coastal area of Basilicata and the northern portion of the Calabria region. The territorial sample does not dial an indistinct area. The reasons of uniformity are exhausted in a kind of spatial contiguity. If it is plausible to take direct considerations from a synoptic view of the geographical area, one must appreciate the elements of differentiation or discontinuity in historical processes marked by peculiar and distinct human experience.
A macroscopic differentiation consists of the structural characteristics of the three cities that populate this area: Poseidonia, Elea and Laos, not excluding the indigenous element as a part of a morphogenetic phenomenon of the landscape, within a scheme of dialectical relationships, sometimes an opposition.
According to an established pattern, Poseidonia is an agrarian polis, Velia is a commercially-oriented city and we know too little about the oldest settlement of Laos to be able to insert it in one of two classifications. We know however, that it was the seat of the sybaritic people, who lived there after the destruction of their polis.
Compared to that framework the archaeological available documents reflect the land use just partially, in terms of exploitation of the basin, of settlement area, and of a place of contact and development.
The representation of one or more pictures of the population has not only the value of showing the impact that human activities have had on the region. Rather, from the examination of the terms of the humans modeling capabilities of the environment is possible to know the anthropic structures and the evolutionary processes. Archaeological data of a territory, all the sources of a landscape research in archeology, are the signs of the organization of resources on the basis of political and social level of a community, its ability to exploit soils and types of production, to rule the defensive needs and traditional knowledge systems.
Magna Greacia territory begins to be an integral part of the examination of the ancient city during the '50s and '60s of the twentieth century. [edited by Author] | it_IT |
