Apennine culture
Encyclopedia
The Apennine culture or Italian Bronze Age is a technology complex
of central and southern Italy
http://img641.imageshack.us/f/italiabronz.png/ spanning the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age
proper. It is preceded by the Neolithic
and succeeded by the Iron Age
Villanovan culture
. Apennine culture pottery is a black, burnished ware incised and decorated with spirals, meanders, dots and bands of dots. It has been found on Ischia
island in association with LHII and LHIII pottery and on Lipari
in association with LHIIIA pottery, which associations date it to the Late Bronze Age as it is defined in Greece and the Aegean. The Apennine has been periodized into Proto-, Early, Middle, Late and The Proto- phase pottery is earlier than LHII and lacks the incisions. As copper slag has been found on Lipari
Carbon-dated to 3050±2000 BC, the beginning of the Proto-phase may well go back to that time; however, typical conventional dates of 1800–1200 BC are given for the whole period.
at Rome as well as on the islands mentioned above.
, who specialized in Etruscan civilization
, rejected them as oversimple. At least with reference to Italy, he discarded Kossinna's Law, which states languages and ethnic groups are to be identified with archaeological groups. Therefore, Pallottino argued that terms such as "the Terramare culture" or "the Apennine culture" have no ethnic or linguistic significance.
The Apennine drew to an end with the spread of the Proto-Villanovan
from the north. It pervaded all of Italy and introduced cremation; however, in Italy cremation existed side-by-side with continued inhumation. By the start of the Villanovan regional cultures had evolved along two main lines: those that practiced both cremation and inhumation and those that practiced inhumation only. The Tiber river was the dividing line. It also divided the two main language groups: Etruscan and Italic. Whatever the Proto-Villanovan represents culturally it cannot have been a uniform language or ethnic group; hence, an "Italic" invasion at that time is to be excluded.
Pallottino's presentation of the contemporaneous view of how the Indo-European languages on the left bank of the Tiber and southward and eastward arrived is as follows. Three waves of Indo-European language speakers, speaking closely related languages, arrived in small groups over time across the Adriatic sea
and moved inland. The first occurred in the Middle Neolithic starting with the Square-necked Pottery Culture and prevailed for the remaining Neolithic and the Proto- and earlier Apennine. The Latin language evolved ultimately from their speech, in Italy. The second wave is associated with Mycenaean civilization of the Late Bronze Age and brought the ancestors of the Italic language speakers into central and south Italy. They prevailed during the remainder of the Apennine. The third wave came with the Proto-Villanovan Culture and is ultimately responsible for the Venetic language speakers. Pallottino admits that this is a tentative and unproven interpretation of the linguistic and archaeological evidence, but he profers it as being better than the previous view of an invasion of Italic people from the north in the Terramare culture
, which was distinct from and parallel to the early Apennine.
The Apennine culture was in this theory always practiced mainly by speakers of unknown languages in the Italic branch of Indo-European, from which the historical languages later came. The term "Proto-Italic", in Pallottino's view, is less useful because there was no single proto-language in Italy. Such a language would have existed on the other side of the Adriatic (Illyria
) in the Neolithic. The way of life of the population in the Apennine range also is consistent with an etymology of Italia as "land of young cattle" (see under Italy).
on the eastern side of Lake Bolsena
. In ancient times Bolsena was part of Etruria
. In addition to remains of Etruscan structures there is a distinct site representing a hamlet of the Apennine Culture that was occupied continuously from the late Neolithic through the Eneolithic, indicating that the population existed before the Apennine and adopted it by cultural diffusion. Excavated by Bloch in 1958 the site evidences wattle-and-daub huts with thatched roofs supported by internal poles. The huts were about 5 m (16.4 ft) by 3 m (9.8 ft) placed on rock-cut foundations. They were surrounded with stone walls for individual defence.
(northern Lazio) to the west of the frazione
of Civitella Cesi, on the left bank of the small Mignone river, next to an abandoned railroad bridge is the acropolis of Luni sul Mignone. The place has been abandoned for centuries (except for archaeologists) and is inaccessible except by foot from Civitella Cesi.
On the acropolis and in a plain to the east, Tre Breci, is a site continuously occupied from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, in addition to the remains of Etruscan Luni (which was then in Etruria) on a higher plateau nearby. The Etruscan citadel is later. Part of the sequence of tre Breci belongs to the Apennine Culture.
This site was excavated 1960-1963 by the Swedish Institute at Rome
and numerous C-14 dates and the association of Late Helladic pottery with Apenninic pottery, both found there, were used to date the Apenninic pottery phases. Carl Eric Östenberg summarized them as: I (1350/1300-1250), II (1250-1150), III (1150-1000), IVA (1000-850) and IVB (850-800); that is, the Apenninic there is Late Bronze Age persisting to 800 BC without the Villanovan.
Noteworthy at the site are the foundations of three houses cut into rock as deep as 2.2 m (7.2 ft), with rammed earth
over limestone chips for floors. The lengths are 7 m (23 ft), 42 m (137.8 ft) and 30 m (98.4 ft) at 4 m (13.1 ft) wide. The walls were stone with possibly thatched roofs. There were multiple entrances. Pottery was chiefly cooking ware. Portable hearths and hand mills were found, along with remains of wheat, barley, beans and peas. The animal bones were chiefly cattle but also pigs, sheep and goats. The population apparently farmed and raised animals. The size of the dwellings and the multiple entrances may indicate multi-family residences.
of Vesuvius in the Bronze Age preserved the pottery and remains of a village of the Apennine Culture in and under sediments from pyroclastic flow. The site is in the comune of Nola, at the locality of Croce del Papa. Unusual about the site is that the forms of perishable objects could be recovered with clarity from the cavities they left in the ash. Remains of goats were found, and also the hoof-prints of goats, sheep, pigs and cattle. Also striking are the thousands of human footprints left in the semi-indurated ash by the population fleeing into the Apennines. The remains suggest that Italics were present in Campania since at least the Middle Bronze Age.
Archaeological culture
An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of artifacts from a specific time and place, which are thought to constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between the artifacts is based on archaeologists' understanding and interpretation and...
of central and southern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
http://img641.imageshack.us/f/italiabronz.png/ spanning the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
proper. It is preceded by the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
and succeeded by the Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
Villanovan culture
Villanovan culture
The Villanovan culture was the earliest Iron Age culture of central and northern Italy, abruptly following the Bronze Age Terramare culture and giving way in the 7th century BC to an increasingly orientalizing culture influenced by Greek traders, which was followed without a severe break by the...
. Apennine culture pottery is a black, burnished ware incised and decorated with spirals, meanders, dots and bands of dots. It has been found on Ischia
Ischia
Ischia is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about 30 km from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures around 10 km east to west and 7 km north to south and has...
island in association with LHII and LHIII pottery and on Lipari
Lipari
Lipari is the largest of the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the north coast of Sicily, and the name of the island's main town. It has a permanent population of 11,231; during the May–September tourist season, its population may reach up to 20,000....
in association with LHIIIA pottery, which associations date it to the Late Bronze Age as it is defined in Greece and the Aegean. The Apennine has been periodized into Proto-, Early, Middle, Late and The Proto- phase pottery is earlier than LHII and lacks the incisions. As copper slag has been found on Lipari
Lipari
Lipari is the largest of the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the north coast of Sicily, and the name of the island's main town. It has a permanent population of 11,231; during the May–September tourist season, its population may reach up to 20,000....
Carbon-dated to 3050±2000 BC, the beginning of the Proto-phase may well go back to that time; however, typical conventional dates of 1800–1200 BC are given for the whole period.
Society
The people of the Apennine culture were alpine cattle herdsmen grazing their animals over the meadows and groves of mountainous central Italy. They lived in small hamlets located in defensible places. On the move between summer pastures they built temporary camps or lived in caves and rock shelters. Their range was not necessarily confined to the hills; their pottery has been found on the Capitoline hillCapitoline Hill
The Capitoline Hill , between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the seven hills of Rome. It was the citadel of the earliest Romans. By the 16th century, Capitolinus had become Capitolino in Italian, with the alternative Campidoglio stemming from Capitolium. The English word capitol...
at Rome as well as on the islands mentioned above.
Imputations of ethnicity
In the 19th and early 20th centuries various theorists made various imputations of ethnicity concerning the Apennine culture. In the 20th century, the Italian scholar, Massimo PallottinoMassimo Pallottino
Massimo Pallottino was an Italian archaeologist specializing in Etruscan civilization and art....
, who specialized in Etruscan civilization
Etruscan civilization
Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...
, rejected them as oversimple. At least with reference to Italy, he discarded Kossinna's Law, which states languages and ethnic groups are to be identified with archaeological groups. Therefore, Pallottino argued that terms such as "the Terramare culture" or "the Apennine culture" have no ethnic or linguistic significance.
The Apennine drew to an end with the spread of the Proto-Villanovan
Villanovan culture
The Villanovan culture was the earliest Iron Age culture of central and northern Italy, abruptly following the Bronze Age Terramare culture and giving way in the 7th century BC to an increasingly orientalizing culture influenced by Greek traders, which was followed without a severe break by the...
from the north. It pervaded all of Italy and introduced cremation; however, in Italy cremation existed side-by-side with continued inhumation. By the start of the Villanovan regional cultures had evolved along two main lines: those that practiced both cremation and inhumation and those that practiced inhumation only. The Tiber river was the dividing line. It also divided the two main language groups: Etruscan and Italic. Whatever the Proto-Villanovan represents culturally it cannot have been a uniform language or ethnic group; hence, an "Italic" invasion at that time is to be excluded.
Pallottino's presentation of the contemporaneous view of how the Indo-European languages on the left bank of the Tiber and southward and eastward arrived is as follows. Three waves of Indo-European language speakers, speaking closely related languages, arrived in small groups over time across the Adriatic sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
and moved inland. The first occurred in the Middle Neolithic starting with the Square-necked Pottery Culture and prevailed for the remaining Neolithic and the Proto- and earlier Apennine. The Latin language evolved ultimately from their speech, in Italy. The second wave is associated with Mycenaean civilization of the Late Bronze Age and brought the ancestors of the Italic language speakers into central and south Italy. They prevailed during the remainder of the Apennine. The third wave came with the Proto-Villanovan Culture and is ultimately responsible for the Venetic language speakers. Pallottino admits that this is a tentative and unproven interpretation of the linguistic and archaeological evidence, but he profers it as being better than the previous view of an invasion of Italic people from the north in the Terramare culture
Terramare culture
Terramare, Terramara or Terremare is a technology complex mainly of the central Po valley, in Emilia, northern Italy, dating to the Middle and Late Bronze Age ca. 1700-1150 BC. It takes its name from the "black earth" residue of settlement mounds. Terramare is from terra marna, "marl-earth", where...
, which was distinct from and parallel to the early Apennine.
The Apennine culture was in this theory always practiced mainly by speakers of unknown languages in the Italic branch of Indo-European, from which the historical languages later came. The term "Proto-Italic", in Pallottino's view, is less useful because there was no single proto-language in Italy. Such a language would have existed on the other side of the Adriatic (Illyria
Illyria
In classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....
) in the Neolithic. The way of life of the population in the Apennine range also is consistent with an etymology of Italia as "land of young cattle" (see under Italy).
Colle della Capriola ("Capriola hill")
Capriola hill is located 5 km (3.1 mi) to the south of BolsenaBolsena
Bolsena is a town and comune of Italy, in the province of Viterbo in northern Lazio on the eastern shore of Lake Bolsena. It is 10 km north-north west of Montefiascone and 36 km north-west of Viterbo...
on the eastern side of Lake Bolsena
Lake Bolsena
Lake Bolsena is a crater lake of central Italy, of volcanic origin, which was formed starting 370,000 years ago following the collapse of a caldera of the Vulsini volcanic complex into a deep aquifer. Roman historic records indicate activity of the Vulsini volcano occurred as recently as 104 BC,...
. In ancient times Bolsena was part of Etruria
Etruria
Etruria—usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia—was a region of Central Italy, an area that covered part of what now are Tuscany, Latium, Emilia-Romagna, and Umbria. A particularly noteworthy work dealing with Etruscan locations is D. H...
. In addition to remains of Etruscan structures there is a distinct site representing a hamlet of the Apennine Culture that was occupied continuously from the late Neolithic through the Eneolithic, indicating that the population existed before the Apennine and adopted it by cultural diffusion. Excavated by Bloch in 1958 the site evidences wattle-and-daub huts with thatched roofs supported by internal poles. The huts were about 5 m (16.4 ft) by 3 m (9.8 ft) placed on rock-cut foundations. They were surrounded with stone walls for individual defence.
Luni sul Mignone
At approximately 10 km from BleraBlera
Blera is a small town and comune in the northern Lazio region of Italy near Rome, known during the Middle Ages as Bieda, an evolved form of its ancient name, which was restored in the 20th century...
(northern Lazio) to the west of the frazione
Frazione
A frazione , in Italy, is the name given in administrative law to a type of territorial subdivision of a comune; for other administrative divisions, see municipio, circoscrizione, quartiere...
of Civitella Cesi, on the left bank of the small Mignone river, next to an abandoned railroad bridge is the acropolis of Luni sul Mignone. The place has been abandoned for centuries (except for archaeologists) and is inaccessible except by foot from Civitella Cesi.
On the acropolis and in a plain to the east, Tre Breci, is a site continuously occupied from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, in addition to the remains of Etruscan Luni (which was then in Etruria) on a higher plateau nearby. The Etruscan citadel is later. Part of the sequence of tre Breci belongs to the Apennine Culture.
This site was excavated 1960-1963 by the Swedish Institute at Rome
Swedish Institute at Rome
The Swedish Institute in Rome is a research institution that serves as the base for archaeological excavations and other scientific research in Italy...
and numerous C-14 dates and the association of Late Helladic pottery with Apenninic pottery, both found there, were used to date the Apenninic pottery phases. Carl Eric Östenberg summarized them as: I (1350/1300-1250), II (1250-1150), III (1150-1000), IVA (1000-850) and IVB (850-800); that is, the Apenninic there is Late Bronze Age persisting to 800 BC without the Villanovan.
Noteworthy at the site are the foundations of three houses cut into rock as deep as 2.2 m (7.2 ft), with rammed earth
Rammed earth
Rammed earth, also known as taipa , tapial , and pisé , is a technique for building walls using the raw materials of earth, chalk, lime and gravel. It is an ancient building method that has seen a revival in recent years as people seek more sustainable building materials and natural building methods...
over limestone chips for floors. The lengths are 7 m (23 ft), 42 m (137.8 ft) and 30 m (98.4 ft) at 4 m (13.1 ft) wide. The walls were stone with possibly thatched roofs. There were multiple entrances. Pottery was chiefly cooking ware. Portable hearths and hand mills were found, along with remains of wheat, barley, beans and peas. The animal bones were chiefly cattle but also pigs, sheep and goats. The population apparently farmed and raised animals. The size of the dwellings and the multiple entrances may indicate multi-family residences.
Nola
The Avellino eruptionAvellino eruption
The Avellino eruption of Mount Vesuvius refers to a Plinian-type eruption that occurred in the 2nd millennium BC and is estimated to have had a VEI of 6...
of Vesuvius in the Bronze Age preserved the pottery and remains of a village of the Apennine Culture in and under sediments from pyroclastic flow. The site is in the comune of Nola, at the locality of Croce del Papa. Unusual about the site is that the forms of perishable objects could be recovered with clarity from the cavities they left in the ash. Remains of goats were found, and also the hoof-prints of goats, sheep, pigs and cattle. Also striking are the thousands of human footprints left in the semi-indurated ash by the population fleeing into the Apennines. The remains suggest that Italics were present in Campania since at least the Middle Bronze Age.