The prehistoric and protohistoric section

The prehistoric and protohistoric section [room 14]
The prehistoric and protohistoric section of the Museum includes a selection of clay and stone materials from Ugento dating back to the Neolithic and Eneolithic period, to which is also added a display case containing ceramic, flint, and bone objects from S. Maria di Leuca. Among the former, there are some lithic axes (fig. 1) found on the central-eastern slopes of the Ugento hill, in the Fabiani area, just north of the old town; there is also a ceramic mixing vessels (fig. 2), from the Eneolithic, coming from Grotta Artanisi, about 3 km south-west of the city, where the Don Cirillo quarries also opens, which has yielded ceramic mixture of Neolithic age, a small flint blade and a fragment of an obsidian blade (fig. 3).
The objects exhibited in the Museum are not the oldest archaeological material found in the Ugento area. In fact, between 1962 and 1974, in the Fondo Focone area, about 6 km south-west of the town, just one kilometre from the Ionian coast, a cave settlement referable to the Upper Palaeolithic was discovered, with a lithic industry dating back to the final Epigravettian. The presences of the Bronze Age is well documented in the Ugentine territory. One of the best known sites of this period is Specchia Artanisi, in the locality of the same name. Here, in 2008-2009, three mounds with a slightly elliptical plan were discovered, resting on a rocky outcrop and documented in the Museum by a diorama on a scale of 1:50 (fig. 4). Each of the mounds covered a dolmen cist, placed in the centre and built with calcarenite slabs. The cists contained several burials, that had already been violated in antiquity; the materials found, including some fragmentary ceramic vases (fig. 5) and a bronze dagger, allow us to date the burials to the proto-Apennine facies B, which developed in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, between the last phase of the Ancient Bronze Age and the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age. In the southern mound, in a peripheral position, another cist tomb made of limestone slabs was also excavated, relating to the burial of a child and not damaged (fig. 6). Inside, skeletal remains were found in a curled-up position and two accompanying vases, consisting of a jug and a large keeled bowl (fig. 7).
The excavations showed that the deposition level of the dolmen cists was made of reddish clay (called bolo), which was spread to level the underlying limestone bank; the monolithic slabs of the burial chambers were then raised on this floor, covered by other slabs not found during the research and probably removed over the centuries; with each new deposition, the slab closing the entrance was opened and closed again. With the final closure of the burial chamber, the mound above was completed, protecting the tomb and making it recognisable in the landscape, by closing the access corridor. The burials can be attributed to a nearby settlement of huts, marked on the surface by impasto ceramics, which occupied a small promontory overlooking the coastal lagoon of Torre San Giovanni, still shown on the historical cartography of the 16th and 17th centuries and which no longer exists today. The size of the burial chambers, the overall number of tombs, and the position of the mounds suggest that the necropolis was used by a restricted group, united by kinship ties, in which formal burial was reserved for only some members in megalithic structures.

Another important settlement of the Middle Bronze Age was discovered in 1976-1977 on the coastal dune of Le Pazze, overlooking the islet of the same name, about 1.5 km north-west of Torre San Giovanni, now crossed by the S.P. Gallipoli-Santa Maria di Leuca. There is some evidence of a first settlement of the Late Bronze Age on the top of the Ugento hill, corresponding to the southern part, where now is the old town. The site guaranteed a naturally defended position and offered a wide view of the surrounding area.
 In this phase remains of a small village of huts, was excavated in the area of the Castle and a little further south, in piazza San Vincenzo, while sporadic materials were also found on the north-eastern and south-eastern slopes of the greenhouse. Finally, a village of huts from the Iron Age seems to be in direct continuity with that of the Late Bronze Age, in particular in the area of the Castle, where pottery dating to the 9th and 8th centuries BC were found, in that of piazza San Vincenzo, where pottery from the 10th-9th century BC were found, and in the adjacent area of vico Milelli, where the remains of a hut were been found together with pottery in geometric decoration dating back to the end of the 8th and 7th centuries BC. There are also sporadic finds of Iron Age period in the central-western and northern sectors of the Ugento hill (Mandorle area), and in the territories located on its north-eastern slopes (Porchiano, Crocefisso, and Santisorgi areas) and south-eastern slopes.