Geoarcheologia in terra di Brindisi: il divenire del paesaggio lungo il Canale Reale

"Canale Reale" (Royal Canal), with its 50 kilometers is the most important stream of Brindisi territory and its springs are situated on the towns lines of Villa Castelli and Francavilla Fontana. This water course that divides southern Murgia from Salento plane, so, laying on Murgia step, it follows altitude profile, becomes a course with many curves and flows into Adriatic Sea in Torre Guaceto, and so it supplies this humid zone of the nature reserve with water. In ancient times, with more humid climatic conditions, its bed carried on a larger amount of water and maybe it was a ship canal, so that it was an important element for territory settlements and represented a penetration way for backcountry and so for the colonization of new territories by Neolithic and metal age communities, as we can see through several settlements that were along its course. The royal Canal, that was probably the ancient river Pactius or Ausonius which is mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia, has the most important hydrographic basin of the Brindisi territory and its springs are near the Santa Maria dei Grani Church (in Francavilla Fontana countryside), and include a 144 hectares area. About these springs historian and geographer Strabone (63 B.C. - 24 A.D.) spoke too; during his peregrinations on italic territory, he visited the site and mentioned it in his journey notes, that are collected in work Geografia. For this reason the sources has been named "Fonte di Strabone" (Strabone's Spring) recently. The plan of the river bed has a form with many curves because it is laid on southern Murgia slope that separates mainly calcareous Murgia from the Brindisi plane, that is filled by the sand-clayely marine sediments of Plio-pleistocene age, deposited on Cretaceous carbonatic basement. The hydrographic basin of Royal Canal is 486 squared kilometers large and corresponds above all the sub-region of "Salento delle Murge", that represents the last southern layers of Murge, which decrease southward from a height of 400-300 meters to 100 meters on sea level, so that rainwater flows take place in the Royal canal.