Age of the Metals and protohistoric societies

With the end of the Neolithic age, the long period of Prehistory came to an end and the Protohistoric, or Age of Metals, began. It comprises the Age of Copper or Aeneolithic or Calcolithic (central part of the III millennium BC), the Age of Bronze (last part of the III-II millennium BC), subdivided in Ancient, Medium, Recent and Final Bronze and the Age of Iron, that in the southern regions of Italy, involved in the premature renewal of the relations with the Greek world, would end at the end of VIII century BC.

Marked by profound progresses like the introduction of metallurgy and the appearance of the first forms of writing, once again, in the Near and Middle East already in the V and IV millennium BC, in this complex, articulated and long period the great Civilizations of the Mediterranean are placed, from the Sumer Civilization to the Egyptian one, from the Minoan Civilization to the Mycenaean.

In Italy, the advent and the subsequent development of the Aeneolithic seems to be characterized by various cultural ferments that, crushing the appearing homogeneity expressed in the Neolithic phase into regional aspects, lead fast to quick and radical changes in all the spheres of the life of the man and in particular in the social context, in which we assist to the passage from the agricultural societies to pastoral societies of warrior tribes.

In Salento, already with the decline of the Neolithic Civilization, new funerary typologies and new ceramics appear, that on one side still show mild links with the ceramics of the Diana-Bellavista horizon, on the other they remark their originality with new vascular typologies, as the pitcher with a bulgy neck and the bowls with a cylindric-convex collar, and in new decorative styles, executed with fine graffiti, extra-gloss and grooves. Identified in the '80s of the twentieth century by Giuliano Cremonesi, this aspect takes the name from the facies Zinzulusa, of the homonymous grotto, and is placed in the first half of III millennium BC.

The circulation of metal began quite late in the Salento territory; rare objects have been recovered in funerary contexts from the second half of the III millennium BC, in which we assist to the diffusion of collective tombs in natural cavities or dug in the cliff, like the necropolis of Grotto Cappuccini of Galatone, of the the facies of Laterza-Cellino San Marco. This archaeological facies appeared in a "cultural" Aeneolithic context characterized by a documentation exclusively on burials, without evident caesure, and evolved and matured in the first age of Bronze (XXIII-XVIII sec. BC.), receiving innovative elements from other territories, often ceramic forms still linked to the previous tradition.

 With the Mid Age of Bronze, Salento and all the coasts of Southern Italy were involved progressively in a dialogue that was long-lasting and rich of innovative impulses with the Greek people of the Mycenaean Civilization. Villages appear along the coasts enclosed by defence walls with a long duration, like Roca Vecchia, Otranto, Santa Maria di Leuca and Porto Cesareo; the inner spaces to the inhabited areas are more and more differentiated and organized with residential and "craftsman” areas, while minor inhabited nuclei place themselves on roads that connect the inner territory with the coast, where the contacts with the Mycenae sailors take place. Between the last part of the mid Bronze (second half of the XV century BC.) until all the final Bronze (XI-X cent BC), Salento experienced an economic and cultural progress, to which surely the friendly and commercial relationships with the Aegean world contributed. At the end of the Bronze Age, the decline of the Mycenae Civilization and serious tensions within the territory, brought to the reorganization of this society: only a few settlements continued to live, like Otranto, but they reduced remarkably the inhabited area and the control of the territory, while others interrupted their existence, up to the resumption of the contacts with the Greek world, between the end of the IX and the beginning of the VIII cent. BC.

Further studies:
_{G. Cremonesi, Osservazioni su alcuni aspetti dell'eneolitico del versante adriatico, in Atti Daunia III, pp. 35-44, 1984.}