Burial mounds and "specchie" in Apulia during the Bronze Age: Local developments and transadriadic connections

Several funerary rituals coexist during the Bronze Age in Apulia, within small areas too. Collective burials in hypogean tombs or natural caves, dolmens under tumuli, pit graves under tumuli and cremation cemeteries could be reminded. As regards the structural features, traits to be compared with the Transadriatic funerary structures are not lacking. Intensive contacts between the Apulia and the eastern Adriatic coast are attested from the second half of the 3rd millennium B.C. by several elements, and especially by the ceramic patterns of the Cetina culture. Particularly as regards the early phases of the Bronze Age, the presence in Apulia of small human groups of Transadriatic origin was suggested. The variability of the funerary structures and rituals could reflect also the existence of privileged links between some indigenous groups and the Transadriatic communities. Following this hypothesis, the Apulian funerary structures with a tumulus will be examined in detail, in a diachronic perspective.