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7 Conclusions Erminia Lapadula The Historical Landscape of San Biagio Rivers and Roads The Basento River and the sea are the elements of the San Biagio landscape that have most directly affected the lives of its human occupants. This landscape has undergone long-term environmental evolution, including dramatic flooding that has changed the course of the rivers and caused the coast to prograde more than a kilometer since ancient times. The fertile coastal plain has been open to maritime, fluvial, and overland trade, and the roads that have run along the Basento were and are the principal contact between the Ionian and Tyrrhenian coasts,1 as well as the principal routes for the diffusion of products and culture within Basilicata. The road along the coast, in use from prehistoric times, helped to link the settlements along it. Recent investigations have shown that in the Greek period, the coastal road in the vicinity of Metaponto and beyond was lined with burials.2 1 Adamesteanu 1974, 11. 2 Osanna 2008a, 925–29. The Basento Road was in continuous, heavy use throughout the Greek period. Following the left bank of the river, it passed important sites at Pantanello, San Biagio, Sant’Angelo, and others in the Metapontine chora. To the northeast, it reached a crossroad that linked it to centers such as Pomarico, Grottole, and Grassano on the left side and Pisticci and Ferrandina on the right. The road ran along the hills that flank the river and continued to be an important link during the Roman,3 Medieval, and modern periods (Fig. 7.2). From the Early Middle Ages, besides the main routes following the rivers and coastline, a dense web of small, rough, and difficult roads developed, essentially mule tracks that traced winding paths along ridges. They were generally known only by the locals and the soldiers. The presence of this efficient and functional network of minor arteries is recorded in Late Roman and Early Medieval written sources.4 3 Buck and Small 1980. 4 About the routes of Metaponto in the Middle Ages, see Dalena 2002 and Dalena 2006. Figure 7.1 Torre di Mare, Metaponto, based on a 19th-century view. (De Luynes 1833) 216 Erminia Lapadula The rise and development of this secondary system linked different parts of the region with one another and offered more flexible and secure paths than the main ones, which were, as mentioned by travelers’ reports, often peopled with criminals and subject to environmental disasters such as floods.5 In the area of San Biagio there are two such tracks: BernaldaGinosa -Laterza (Fig.7.2) and Miglionico-Metaponto.6 Settlement around San Biagio Many Imperial settlements, as discussed by Giardino in Chapter 1, have been archaeologically recorded in the territory surrounding San Biagio. They include San Vito, Masseria Durante (see Fig. 1.5), and Bivio Franchi, and, in the area between Cavone and Agri Rivers, the sites of Termitito (see Fig. 1.8) and Recoleta .7 In the survey carried out by ICA over the past 30 years, a total of 20 sites dating to this period were found (see Fig. 1.10).8 Dating from the Republican age and in some cases to the pre-Roman period, none of these sites are strictly comparable in their structural or spatial characteristics to San Biagio. They have all been previously interpreted as villas, though only in the case of Termitito is the structure both well preserved and dated. The others have been only partially explored. 5 In particular Dalena 2006, 25. 6 Palasciano 1981. 7 Masseria Durante: Lissi Caronna 2000; San Vito (Nava 2003, 667; Greco 2009, 804–05); Bivio Franchi (Greco 2009, 802–03); Termitito: De Siena and Giardino 1994, 204–06; L. Giardino 2001, De Siena 2005, 453–56, Carter 2006, 249–50; Recoleta: De Siena and Giardino 1994, 206; Mauro 2007–2008. 8 For the survey results, see Carter 2006, and recently, Lapadula 2011. Most seem more likely to have been modest rural structures (substantial farmhouses), but there are few grounds for suggesting the presence of significant villas on these sites.9 They all seem to continue into the Late Roman period, in general until the 5th century AD. Termitito, which was occupied only up to the 3rd century AD, is the exception. Similar situations existed in northeastern Basilicata (seen from investigations at Alto Bradano, the territory of Venosa, and Apulia). The settlement pattern that evolved in the Imperial period thus was composed of villas, but perhaps predominantly of small settlements...

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