Communities and landscape(s) of North-eastern Apulia during the 2nd millennium BC

Northern Apulia is composed of a highly diversified palimpsest of landscapes, from the dynamic ecosystems of the coastal and wet areas to the uplands and rough mountain valleys. These diverse ecozones have yielded dozens of archaeological sites dating to the 2nd millennium BC: some can be characterised by but a small amount of finds, generally pottery fragments, indicating short and/or sporadic occupation of a location, others are extraordinary structures with a large number of archaeological finds (for example, at Torre Mileto or Coppa Nevigata), witnessing long-lasting occupation of the same physical place. Diverse communities interacted with one another and across various environments, producing multi-layered political relationships and human-environment interactions. This study discusses possible scenarios of human-landscape(s) interaction and political relationships between different communities throughout the 2nd millennium BC in North-eastern Apulia, by visualising and analysing a dataset composed of archaeological sites known from available literature and web sources.