Gravina in Puglia: City Substratum as a Process of “Invention” and Transformation of the Territory

The city of Gravina in Puglia owes its name to its peculiar geomorphological position, presenting itself as the city of the “Gravina and the Caves in the Gravina” (città della “Gravina e delle Grotte nella Gravina”)1. The locus-urbs Gravinae is witness of the passing of time, in an incessant succession of civilizations since the ancient Paleolithic, although the sure sources date back to the Neolithic, around 5950 B.C. In its territory, where nature and the work of man represent an inseparable binomial, the caves and the ravines of the “grande baratro” (Botromagno) have been modeled for the needs of everyday life, giving life to the rock habitat. The cave was occupied by man and made refuge, dwelling, place of worship or burial. Prehistoric dwelling then resumed in medieval age, in an era pervaded by uncertainty and vandal invasions in which man felt the need to re-find a safe place, the old abandoned dwelling. History arises as a continuous transformative process in which man, changing his needs and habits, transforms his native place, making it more “anthropic” and less “natural”.  The aim of the research is to propose a historical procedural study of the evolution of the gravinese rock habitat and of the same civitas, from the primitive caves to the cave-houses (domus criptae). Parallel to this progressive typological evolution, it is noted that the tuff from a simple natural casing becomes a building material used for the weaving of wall perimeter, the basic element for the following palatiate houses.