Il quadro insediativo tra X e XII secolo nel sud-est della Terra di Bari. Un esempio di uso integrato di fonti documentarie e ricerca archeologica.

Abstract

This research project has as its subject matter the urban and rural settlements of central Apulia between the 10th and the 12th century, through the analysis of the archival sources and the archaeological data. The historical period and the area under analysis have never been subject to systematic research, meaning that the study required a complete cataloguing of the archaeological settlements identified within the urban and rural areas and known from published works as well as from historical and documentary sources. The research was conducted through the analysis of the different components of the territory: the landscape, the infrastructures, the urban and rural settlement system, the land management methods, the monastic and ecclesiastical network. The survey has its focal point in the systematic census of all the contexts and archaeological evidence, merged into two catalogs: a "Catalog of settlements" and a "Catalog of religious buildings", which respectively host 94 and 158 files, which provide functional data for cartographic referencing, indications on the geomorphological and topographical framework, chronological elements, indications on the bibliography and on the archive documentation. Therefore it was possible to relate the individual cases in an overall synthesis, to reconstruct the settlement network attested in the area and to formulate new hypotheses about the close correlation between sites and particular features of the landscape: the so-called lame, wetlands, karst lakes, as well as the connection with the available natural resources, outlining an overall settlement framework of the southern sector of central Apulia, with attention to the persistence and discontinuity factors in the articulated story of this land in the Middle Ages. [edited by Author]