Ancient Landscapes of the Tavoliere, Apulia

A significant development in the use of air photographs in historical geography came at the end of the Second World War. Photographs of the largest plain in southern Italy revealed to J. P. S. Bradford evidence of one of the densest concentrations of prehistoric settlement in Europe, as well as of Roman and medieval field patterns and settlement sites, in remarkable detail. Intensive study of the ancient landscapes of this plain, the Tavoliere of Foggia, Apulia, is only just beginning and so far questions tend to be raised rather than answered. The starting point for detailed archaeological and geographical field work and research is a reconstruction of its environment in Mid-Neolithic times, in order to lead to identification of the nature of subsequent environmental changes and of the underlying processes. In this, alteration in land use may offer useful clues. It may be, for example, that prehistoric agriculture was biased towards pastoralism in contrast to the pattern in early Roman times, for which the extensive centuriation systems traceable on the aerial photographs suggest predominance of cultivation, at least in those areas. Certainly by the end of the Middle Ages a highly specialized form of commercial sheep ranching had developed on the black earths of this Mediterranean steppe, in contrast to the intensive arable activity now appearing in connection with major post-war land reforms. Possibly associated with land-use changes on the Tavoliere, other landscape features, such as settlements, seem to have appeared and disappeared so there are marked contrasts in the settlement patterns of the three periods in question. The study of problems resulting from research into consecutive landscapes, those for example, of land-use and settlement patterns and of the underlying social and physical changes, may have wider relevance in terms of methodology, than of mere historical comparison.