Ricerc@Sapienza

The Terramare are undoubtedly one of the outstanding features of Bronze Age Europe, both in terms
of archaeological remains, and in view of their geographical and cultural position between Central Europe and
the Mediterranean. They are of great significance as regards demographic and growth dynamics, as well as in the
way they act as markers for the collapse of a socio-economic and political system which prospered for over four
centuries. After the disappearance of these settlements and the, apparently total, abandonment of the entire region
south of the Po River, the area would not be settled anew until the first centuries of the 1st millennium BCE. Today
we know that the collapse of the Terramare world in the late Recent Bronze Age (RBA) was not absolute. Some
evidence of continuity has been attested north of the Po in the area south of Verona and in the Polesine region.
The archaeological characteristics of the final phase of the Terramare, datable to RBA 2, are well defined by
a series of ceramic types and decorations featuring an easily-recognizable style. One of the most puzzling
phenomena at the end of the Terramare life cycle was the widespread diffusion of the Terramare pottery style
from northern Tuscany down to the coast of Apulia and the Ionian Sea. Particularly important is a portion of the
Campanian Plain, not far from Naples, with a series of settlements of new foundation and brief duration, the ceramic
heritage of which is stylistically akin to that of the Terramare. Amongst them Afragola appears to be the
most important and rich in data. A similar case occurs at Rocavecchia, near Lecce in Apulia. Unlike Afragola,
this settlement survived for a considerable length of time, its life cycle beginning in at least the 16th century
BCE and continuing until the Early Iron Age, perhaps with some interruptions. A thorough examination of this
phenomenon leads us towards an in-depth analysis of the hitherto proposed models of movement of groups of people from the North to the South of the peninsula linked to the collapse of the Terramare world, albeit in the
framework of clearly detectable sets of recurring characteristics in the pottery production.