Sheep-farming

The mountains and valleys of Abruzzo, its vast and barren plateaus and the stony slopes of its massifs have made it, since the very earliest times, an ideal environment for shepherds and their flocks.
Already, during the Bronze Age, between the 16th and l2th centuries B.G., 5heep~farming was common among the peoples who had settled in the Abruzzo area. There was a certain regression at the beginning of the first millennium B.C. with the rise of Picenian agriculture (at which time the extraordinary Guerriero di Capestrano - Warrior of Capestrano - was produced). This led to the Appenine shepherd settlements being restricted to the more mountainous areas further inland. From the 7th century B.C. onwards, under the influence of the Sabellian people, sheep-farming was given a new impetus. The Sabellian races, which were divided into numerous different genti (peoples), generally called Italic, sheep-farmed in territories limited to the areas in which they settled, only moving between the mountains above and the plains directly below. Under Roman influence and once territory had been divided up and the conflicts put down between the Sabellian tribes and the Daunians (farmers of the lowlands of Puglia), Abruzzo sheep-farming was able to extend towards the plains of Puglia. The latter were ideal for an entrepreneurial type of 5heep~farming and this was backed by large amounts of capital from noble families in Rome. It was, however, in the first half of the 15th century that sheep-farming in Abruzzo developed most. In fact, it is estimated that, in that period, about 30,000 shepherds took no fewer than 3,000,000 head of sheep to winter in Puglia. As there were about 300,000 people in Abruzzo at that time, that was an average of about 10 sheep per inhabitant. If pastoral activity in the literal sense is then added to those industries which were a direct consequence of it, one can quite easily affirm that at least half the population of Abruzzo was directly dependent on sheep-farming.

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