Peucetia and Peucetians

Map of South Italy, showing geography and ancient Peucetia

Ancient Apulia corresponds to modern Puglia in southeastern Italy. The region comprises the Salentine Peninsula and extends north to the Gargano Promontory, where it shares a border with the region of Molise; at the southwest and west, it shares borders with Basilicata (Lucania) and Campania. The coastline borders the Adriatic Sea to the northeast and the Ionian Sea to the south. The original basis for the conception of ancient Apulia as a geographic entity was informed by the Greek sources, which referred to the region as Japygia, and its indigenous population as the Iapygians.These people are believed to have brought their culture to Apulia between the 12th and 10th centuries BCE, and on the basis of the archaeological evidence, over the course of the 8th century, to have evolved into three distinct cultures and population groups.[1] For example, at this time Apulian geometric pottery styles become regional, and identified with each of these  cultures.[2] The sources name these sub-populations and locate them in geographic regions of Apulia: the Daunians, to the north, who inhabited the territory between Bari and the Ofanto River and further north, the Tavoliere valley; the Messapians, who inhabited the most southern part, the Salentine Peninsula to Egnazia; and the Peucetians, who inhabited the area in the middle: the central Murge plateau, between Egnazia and Bari (on the coast), and inland (to the west) to the Brandano River, the natural frontier between Apulia and Lucania. As mentioned, our loom weights come from the area to the east of the Murge valley, in eastern Bari Province.[3]