From prehistory the Salento was inhabitated
by messapiches populations who brought their own language and
customs giving a territorial order to the region that has remained
unchanged for the following centuries.
The Iapigi from whom the Puglia of today has taken the name
of Iapigia; came across the Adriatic from the opposite bank
of the Illyrian and of the Epiro in accordance with modern thinking
or according to literary tradition, were tied to sheep farming and
to agriculture. The Salento still preserves megalithic monuments belonging
to the bronze age (about 1800 bc.).
Dolmen and Menhir: the first ones probably
represented the graves and were formed from supporting stone plates
and a cover as if it was a kind of room and were are found isolated
in the country. The menhir were associated to the cult of
fertility, as phallic symbols or to that of the sun, however they
were formed from big stones with a rectangular base placed vertically
on the ground. In the old days the farmers threw a handful of seeds
on the menhir before scattering them on the ploughed earth to mark
propitiatory.
 The
Messapi tried at first to oppose the Greek colonization
and then to the conquest of the romans by which they were
finally defeateded and subdued in 272 B.C. Between the IVth and
the VthCen. Christianity developed because of the diocese
organization and of the first Christian comunity, there was an agricultural
and merchant development which is a testimony of this period and
underlines the existence today in ravines, and natural caves where
the rural classes lived for security reasons or in defence from
natural calamities Civiltà rupestre (ancient installations
in the localita of Roca).
Following there were the invasions of the lombards
in the VIth C, the Saracens in the second half of the IXth
C, of the byzantines untill the XIth C, of the Normans
of the Svevs in the first half of the XIIIth C, they were
followed by the Angevins and in 1442 the Aragoneses.
 About
the end of 1500 big towers were built not only with the purpose
to oppose the raids but also to sight the enemy. Access to the towers
was across wooden staircases which in the evening were guarded from
inside. In the same period fortified farms were built strengthened
with outside walls, towers and drawbridges that isolated them entirely.
We can still notice the farms with towers along the Jonico area
today.
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