A small city in southern Italy, northwest of Taranto, which formed part of the duchy of Benevento and of the principality of Salerno. It was occupied successively by the Normans, the Aragonese, and the Orsini. In the old part of the city, people inhabit cavelike houses cut into the rock with only an opening for the door, a system dating from prehistoric times. The name is also applied to a Middle Neolithic ware from many sites in its neighborhood, notably the ditched villages of Murgecchia and Murgia Timone and a cave site, the Grotta dei Pipistrelli. A dark burnished ware with curved bowls and straight-necked jars, it is characterized by rectilinear geometric designs scratched after firing and filled with an inlay of red ochre. A quite different ware, thin, buff-colored, and painted with broad bands of scarlet, is sometimes included in the term.