Analisi del popolamento e delle dinamiche culturali del Neolitico nella Puglia Centrale : un approccio territoriale per la Bassa Murgia

The objective of the research conducted by the candidate was from the beginning the proposal for an analysis of the population and of the cultural dynamics of the Neolithic age in Central Puglia. Such aspiration came from the fact that the object of this research was, in recent decades, much less investigated than the surrounding areas, such as the plain of Tavoliere and the Salento. This lack of information made it required a review of research and studies, through the construction of an Atlas of population, in order to bridge (or at least start doing it) this vacuum. In fact, an assessment of population of Neolithic age in southeastern Italy cannot be regarded as distinct cultural areas and geographically limited. Although there are important archaeological facies differentiation, it is only through a global vision and articulated with the information that you can describe processes and dynamics that have led to a population so impressive, since its expansion to sudden collapse, causing the transformation of the Apulian landscape. The choice to look at the complexity of this side of the Neolithic Puglia binds culturally, geographically, as well as looking great already made on the spread of the Neolithic in the plain of Tavoliere of Puglia, only in European colonization of capillary ...This has made it possible to draw a global framework, which currently excludes only the Salento peninsula, Neolithic Peopling of Northern and Central Puglia. The features that differentiate the two complexes, are closely linked to both the habitat settlement as insediamentali, choices in the region concerned is organized at different levels (the Adriatic coastal area facing the ancient riverbeds, torrentizi area, offshoots of the Murge plateau), the cultural forms, as handicraft production and especially aspects related to rituals of frequentation natural caves.