This paper focuses on the interactions between the environment and human society from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages in southern Apulia, at the heel of Italy, at the lower part of the Adriatic region. The results of recent archaeological investigations and paleoenvironmental studies, has led us to establish a correlation between the indicators of extensive olive cultivation, the archaeological markers indicating the movement of goods either side of the Adriatic Sea, and Byzantine economic and political dominance over all or part of the region, as well as the lower Adriatic.