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Bice Peruzzi, a doctoral student at the University of Cincinnati presented her findings at the 2016 Archaeological Institute of America/Society for Classics Studies Annual Meeting in San Francisco recently. Bice was studying the burial practices of people who were thought to have inhabited the Central Apulian region, south of Italian peninsula, between 525 and 200 BC. These people left no written record of their existence, whatsoever. She told the conference, "After going through volumes of collected material, I realized that there was so much more that could be said about what was happening in the development of this particular culture. "In spite of having no written history, I was able to distinguish three different periods and then connect them to the larger Mediterranean history to see how their society changed," reported the drinks business

Back in the day, Southern Italy was a Greek colony and was located near the city of Taranto, a crucial trade and cultural hub for Magna Graecia, stretching between Sicily and Syracuse of Greece. Greek influence was evident in the style of pottery, with most tombs between 'Period One', between 525 and 350 BC, contained Greek vases and other artefacts such as wine kylix and lamps. Tombs clarified that in those days, men men were into ritual feasting and warfare, where wine played a huge role, as reported by the drinks business

Formation of the tombs said a lot about the way family members came back to the tombs to honor the dead. "The care in displaying the artifacts in these tombs is striking, especially considering that the objects could have been visible only during the brief period when the tomb was open," she noted. "This gives the impression that during Period 1 the tomb was conceived not only as the final resting place of the deceased, but almost as the stage for dancing and a burial performance."