History of Apulia
History Apulia
The south of Italy and Puglia are little known places compared to other famous Italian tourist destinations but not less fascinating. In fact, the trip to Puglia has the advantage that it is not so exploited as other places for tourism and at the same time it is a region that is moving towards a quality tourism that exalts its strong point as fine cuisine or city of d ' value art.
Prehistory and Preliminary Era
Puglia is a region of southern Italy, precisely identified with the Italian boot heel. The Latin name (and perhaps best known internationally) is Apulia. It has about 4 million inhabitants and its capital is the city of Bari although in the region there are other very important cities such as Taranto, Lecce, Brindisi and Foggia. Puglia is the easternmost region of Italy, about 80 km from the Albanian coast and the Greater Western islands. Some studies have revealed that the southern part of Puglia was inhabited already in the middle Paleolithic (80,000 years ago), the time of "Homo neanderthalensis". There are also "Homo sapiens sapiens" (Paleolithic Superior, 35,000 thousand years ago), but maybe the most interesting discovery of the first inhabitants of Puglia is Delia: a woman of 25,000 years ago, discovered at Ostuni who had in his lap the remains of a child. This made her the first mother of the story found by archaeologists. Other important discoveries are the "megalithic" constructions, especially in the southern part of Salento, between dolmen and menhir, which in the following centuries were used as places of Christian worship.
The Japigia
Japigia (now Puglia), originally inhabited by Illyrians and Greeks, included the territories of Daunia (Northern Apulia), Peusce (in the center) and Messapia (Old Salento). The Daunians have developed their own rich culture, while maintaining contacts with other nearby populations, both Greek and indigenous, who have always had a precise "independence" of their culture. The Peucians inhabited the central area of Puglia, which corresponds more or less to the present province of Bari. The Salentine peninsula (southern part of Puglia), called by the Greeks Messapia (which means "land between two seas") was inhabited by population of Messapi of Illyrian origin or Aegean-Anatolian origin. A separate story deserves the city of Taranto, very important port of Magna Grecia, founded in 706 BC after some Spartan settlers moved to this area for extensive commercial questions. The Tarantines had ambitions to conquer the territories and align themselves with Sparta's policy declared war on the Messapi but suffered a great defeat that also killed Spartan King Archidam III who had come from Magna Grecia to help in trying to take Puglia.