Map & History

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Villanovian civilisation

The Native Origin Hypothesis

The third hypothesis, the most credited, provides a native origin, which is assuming that the Etruscans were descended from the original population of the Italian peninsular. It is believed that an ancient ethnic peninsular class was represented by the Neolithic burials, it overlaps, around 1500B.C, as results from the Illyrians invasions, the proto-italic cremation that gave way to the Villanovian civilisation and from this between 1000 to 1800 B.C. gave way to the Etruscan civilisation.
Yet Dionysius from Alycarnass, a Greek historian who lived in the Augustan Age denied the identification of the Etruscan with the Pelasgi or the Lidi and supported their Italian origins, on the information that the Etruscan themselves claimed the national name of Rasenna. Thanks to archaeological evidence there are those who have seen that the major part of the Etruscan towns that developed along the same lines as previous Villanovian villages. At Veio, for example, a few kilometres from Rome, the ancient Villanovian settlements seem to be built by independent villages, each one with their own cemetery, but all grouped above high-plain of tufa on which later was built the Etruscan town. Therefore seem that there was not a sudden interruption in history, simply the Villanovians became Etruscans.

The Villanovian civilisation The most important population in the Italian peninsular in the first half of the Iron Age, was conventionally called Villanovian, from a typical settlement discovered in 1853 at Villanova, near Bologna. Such civilisation arrived at its climax half way through the VIII cent. B.C. starting from the XII cent. There occurred a gradual process to unite the culture, in which until then the principle manifestation was the diffusion of cremation cemeteries, found practically in all the Italian peninsular territory. Other common characteristics regard the method of ceramic workmanship and afterwards metal workmanship, in particular metal foil production for buckets, helmets, leggings and the use of fibulae. Subsequently the Villanovians made wide use of the rich iron deposits in Tuscany, for tools of everyday use. The bronze continued to be widely used, especially for decoration work.
The Villanovian culture is diffused everywhere in all the East Coast of Italy reaching Rimini, and grew into Tuscany and into Lazio. The archaeologists distinguish between the two main groups: the northern Villanovians, around Bologna, in which the civilisation flourished from the VII to the V cent. B.C., and those in the south, in Tuscany and in northern Lazio, which were diffused in the next epoch. Strong eastern influences and especially Greek that can be compared only between the southern Villanovian, overall in Tuscany. The location of the ancient villages slowly began to unite in rich and fortified towns, it points to the centralisation of numerous families, they began to abandon the tradition of cremating their dead, in favour of the new method of burial, in which the dead was deposited in trench tombs. At the same time, there began to observe a widespread diffusion of the Etruscan language. If this had been new emerging culture influence or the arrival by a new population called the Etruscans, we do not know (see the hypothesis on the origin of the Etruscans.