The Torre dell’Alto archaeological project has undertaken in collaboration with the Museum of Prehistory and Protohistory of Nardò, the exploration of the most monumental complex of the Bronze Age in the Porto Selvaggio natural park. This is the massive dry-stone wall of Torre dell’Alto, a fortification dating back to the Bronze Age and measuring approximately 20 × 200 m, making it one of the largest in all of peninsular Italy.

The Torre dell’Alto site, the object of this research, is located close to a rocky outcrop bordered on three sides by dense vegetation and to the west by the sixteenth-century tower, built to a height of about 50 m above sea level. guarding the coast. The vast and compact pine forest, which characterizes today’s landscape, is the result of an intensive redevelopment intervention, which took place during the1950s. The settlement of Torre dell’Alto was in a relationship of inter-visibility with another settlement, which at the moment would appear to be coeval and located at Punta dell’Aspide, a little further to the south. The site has produced material that can be dated to a chronological span ranging from the Middle Bronze Age to the Final Bronze Age.