Da Siris-Polieion a Herakleia. I paesaggi della Siritide tra arcaismo ed età classica

The territory of the Siritide, between the Archaic and Classical periods, has been host of a complex settlement story. The dossier of data concerning each of the phases of the history of this region is articulated and not without interpretative knots. To a multi-layered ’colonial’ tradition recorded in ancient literary sources, a composite archaeological framework has been added over the years, which is rich in implications for our knowledge of the cross-cultural dynamics and settlement strategies implemented in this sector of the Gulf of Taranto. In this panorama, despite the prevailing attention devoted to a few key settlements, systematic investigations and occasional finds made at several other sites in the coastal and para-coastal strip of the Siritide have contributed to compose an articulated framework of knowledge about the peopling pattern of this landscape in the different periods. Here more than elsewhere, therefore, the territory represents a particularly important observatory for the analysis of the political structures, socio-economic systems and cultural phenomena of a Western Greek polis.