According to tradition, the founding of Taras occurred around 706 B.C., by a group of colonisers from Laconia. The new village, recognising Sparta as its mother country, was settled in an area inhabited densely by the Japigie population. Tradition and archaeological evidence indicates 700 to 680 B.C. as the end of all the main aboriginal centres: Tuna Rock and Castelluccia Tower; although at Amastuola and at Saturo the old populations overlapped these small Greek settlements
The occupied territory comprised all the coastal plain up to the first hills of the Taranto Murge. The Japigie population, now enslaved, was used in agricultural production.
Tombs, between 520 and 470 B.C., were constructed in wide quadrangular rooms with the roof supported on Doric columns, in imitation of the banqueting halls of the large contemporary houses.
