CHAPTER SEVEN

URBANIZATION IN SOUTHERN ETRURIA

FROM THE TENTH TO THE SIXTH

CENTURY BC: THE ORIGINS AND

GROWTH OF MAJOR CENTERS

Robert Leighton

U

rbanization is a recurrent theme in Mediterranean archaeology of the early fi rst
millennium bc and one that has been revisited frequently in recent years.^1 What
is meant by urbanization (or, indeed, by a city) may vary according to time, place and
scholarly or cultural tradition. As a process of development, urbanization overlaps state
formation and questions of economic, socio-political and territorial organization. In
Etruria, it most obviously concerns the origins and growth of the main centers, and
their form, structure and function in a regional setting. The lives of many Etruscan cities
extend for a millennium or more from the end of the Bronze Age, providing abundant
material for multi-period narratives or site biographies, but they also raise diffi cult
questions about the cause, pace and trajectory of change. The breadth and complexity
of this topic permits only an introductory sketch, which considers the archaeological
evidence for major cities during their fi rst few centuries of life (circa 1000–500 bc).
Priority is given here to settlement layout and the built environment, while territorial
relationships, which tend to highlight economic and political questions and have been
the subject of much important work, can only be touched on.

EARLY IRON AGE (VILLANOVAN) FOUNDATIONS,

CIRCA 950–725 BC

As archaeological sites, most Etruscan cities can be ascribed Late Bronze or Early Iron Age
(henceforth EIA) origins.^2 Tarquinia, Chiusi, Vulci, Vetulonia, Volterra and probably also
Caere, were already occupied in the Final Bronze Age (Protovillanovan period, twelfth
to eleventh centuries), or even earlier^3 (See Fig. 7.1). Initially they were part of a settled
landscape of relatively numerous small or medium-sized settlements, but they seem to
have grown considerably and achieved regional status in the EIA (Villanovan period,
mid-tenth to eighth centuries). In southern Etruria, their rise to prominence coincided
with the abandonment of neighboring settlements, which created an increasingly
“monocentric” pattern characterized by a small number of relatively large strategically
placed sites. How and why this occurred is hard to specify. Voluntary or coerced synoecism