insediamento, tracce di insediamento

Just south of the city, this stretch of the Salento countryside bears quiet witness to a far older order. Scattered finds and rescue excavations, prompted by post-war building works, a collapsed dry-stone wall, and the laying of foundations for INA-Casa housing, have revealed traces of a substantial settlement active from the 6th to the 3rd century BC. It lies within a 4th-century BC defensive wall, the so-called “Paretone”, which once enclosed the largest known settlement of northern Messapia, a dominant centre among the fortified Iron Age communities of the region. The Messapians, an Iapygian people who flourished here before the Roman conquest, built in local limestone and left behind tombs, quarry marks, and pottery. In 1951, two graves with “fine vases” were uncovered; in 1953, a slab-lined tomb containing coarseware fragments; and in 1986, another burial. Each accidental discovery speaks to the deep, persistent archaeology just beneath the modern surface.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.