Section III: Neolithic and the Metal Age
| Room IV - Neolithic and the Metal Age |
The prehistoric narration of the Salento conclude with the Neolithic section and the Metal Age.
The Neolithic period represents a fundamental and irreversible stage in the development of man’s society. From an economy based on hunting, man progresses to an agricultural economy, which quickly led him to ever more complex and layered sedentary societies, starting with the appearance of the first, small stable settlements: villages, where, for the first time, man tended to the domestication of plants and animals, pottery and weaving. In time, these led to new and more advanced craft activities.
Salento played a fundamental role in the distribution of the new Neolithic culture through peninsular Italy, a culture originating from the eastern Mediterranean (the so-called neolithisation), documenting a settlement already in the early stages of the Neolithic period (end of the 7th -Beginning of the 6th millennium B. C.) including some of the most ancient Neolithic villages in western Europe located on the coast, with unmistakable vestiges in Torre Cabeza di Gallipoli. From the coast, the Neolithic population quickly took over the more internal territories with larger and larger settlements on fertile tableland, often characterized by the presence of small water streams and the renewed use of caves, not for residential purposes, but rather for cultural purposes.
The vases in Grotta Zinzulusa and the cave paintings in Grotta dei Cervi introduce us to a religious dimension that becomes more and more detailed and complex, with ceremonies dedicated to the chthonian world and to the gods of water, the sacredness of tribal connections and the worship of the dead, up to the initiatory rites of children, of which Grotta dei Cervi holds hundreds of vestiges.
Important documentation, mainly pottery, originating from the villages of the Bronze Age illustrate the great vitality of the Salentino territory in a period now on the threshold with history, with new territorial strategies and a new socio-political order, often the cause of obscure tensions, of which dramatic evidence remains at various sites, as well as testimonies of fundamental new socio-cultural impulses. Such was the long relationship with Mycenaean sailors, between the XVI and the XI century BC, and the relationship with the Albanian coasts as well as the coasts around the region of Epirus. The artwork of dolmens and menhirs scattered throughout the Salentino territory, mysterious megalithic monuments made by indigenous people, most likely in this last period, complete the documentation of prehistoric Salento, an introduction to new stories of Salento linked to the world of Japigia and later to the Messapic world.
Bibliography:
G. Cremonesi, Nuovi dati sul più antico Neolitico della Penisola Salentina, in AttiDaunia, VI, pp. 75-83, 1987.
J. Guillaine, G. Cremonesi (a cura di), Torre Saea. Un établissement du Néolithique ancien en Salento, Coll. École Française Rome, 2003.
E. Ingravallo (a cura di), La passione dell'origine. Giuliano Cremonesi e la ricerca preistorica nel Salento, Lecce, 1997.
M. A. Orlando,Guida al Museo. L’Alca, Museo Civico di Paleontologia e Paletnologia “Decio de Lorentiis”, ed. Amministrazione com. Maglie, 2003.
M. A. Orlando, Attestazioni di tipo miceneo nel Salento meridionale durante l'Età del Bronzo, in F. D'Andria, M. Lombardo (a cura di), I Greci in Terra d'Otranto,p p. 39-49, Galatina, 1999.
M. A. Orlando, Il Bronzo finale nel Salento. Problemi ed evidenze, in Seminario di Studi di Preistoria e Protostoria dell'Etruria, III, Manciano-Farnese, 12-14 maggio 1995, pp. 273-286.
