From Safin to Roman: Cultural Change and Hybridization in Central Adriatic Italy

From Safin to Roman investigates the Central Adriatic Apennines (roughly the modern region of Abruzzo), occupied in antiquity by Italic populations variously termed 'Sabelli', 'Sabellics' or 'Sabellians'. For too long the region has been seen merely as a mountainous and isolated 'terra di pastori', sparsely populated with shepherds from prehistory to the late Hellenistic period, thus overestimating the role of the Romans in the organisation and exploitation of the landscape. The region in general has received little scholarly attention internationally compared with Tyrrhenian Italy, although the last three decades have been very rich in excavations and finds. The role of stock raising itself needs to be reinterpreted, because it changed greatly from period to period and certainly did not exclude other economical resources, already in early periods. The topography of the area and recent finds, show that agriculture was also important for the large sub Apennine and coastal areas, hilly but certainly not only mountainous, and that other resources were also important for the local economy, such as the exploitation of the forest and metallurgy. The monograph is complemented by appendices presenting the latest research and conclusions from a range of scholars working on the area.