- Robert Leighton –
recorded within a 20-kilometer radius, none of which look like serious rivals.^7 This is
a striking feature of EIA settlement patterns in southern Etruria, although the extent
to which current distribution maps refl ect past reality is questionable.^8 Small sites are
undoubtedly under-represented. The nature of territorial control exerted by the main
centers at this time is also hard to gauge. A sphere of infl uence dictated by political
considerations rather than subsistence needs is more likely than a closely administered
territory. The population of an EIA site (see below) must have been sustainable with
just a few square kilometers of productive surrounding land, whereas the agricultural
potential of a large territory would be hard to exploit effectively or intensively without
a network of subsidiary affi liated sites, which are not well attested. On the other hand,
looser territorial rights could be useful for transhumance, hunting, fi shing, providing
access to more distant pasture, woodlands, wetlands, the sea and, not least, the valuable
resources of metal-bearing localities (such as the Tolfa hills in the case of Tarquinia and
Caere, or the Colline Metallifere in the case of Populonia and Vetulonia).
Our knowledge of site layouts, however, is sketchy and biased towards cemeteries.
Habitation zones are largely unexcavated or known only from scattered fi nds, often just
potsherds from plough soil.^9 Dating is reliant on ceramic typologies rather than 14C
dates and often approximate, particularly of houses, which are mostly badly preserved
due to successive rebuilding and not necessarily long-lived or contemporary. Burials,
however plentiful, provide limited compensation for such lacunae. Population estimates
for EIA sites are problematic, ranging from several hundred to a few thousand people,
although fi gures at the lower end of this scale may seem more plausible.^10 Nevertheless,
the distribution and quantity of fi nds from the large sites has grown. They now come
from all the main promontories of Tarquinia and are scattered over much of Veii, Caere
and Vulci. This has cast doubt on the idea, fi rst formulated in regard to Veii, that the
large plateaus or hillocks of EIA sites typically hosted various independent villages.
Rather than individually demarcated units, replicating each other in structure and
function, many authors now consider them to be single communities sharing a large
space, at least in the case of physically unitary sites.^11 This does not exclude a segmented
and discontinuous distribution, however, that permitted some differential sub-group
organization and identity.^12 The presence of distinct cemeteries around the fringes
of promontories and residential areas, which they complement and help to defi ne, is
reconcilable with this idea.
In the Final Bronze Age, small communities at Tarquinia (Castellina, Corneto)
and Veii (Isola Farnese) might have used the larger adjacent plateaus primarily for
agriculture.^13 The large oval houses on the Monterozzi (Calvario) plateau (see Fig. 7.2),
perhaps associated with the Arcatelle cemetery, probably date to the EIA (phase 1),
while the smaller quadrangular buildings, with a more consistent orientation, could be
residences of slightly later date (phase 2) and include one or two ancillary structures,
perhaps for storage or animals.^14 EIA residential zones can be postulated on Civita and
Cretoncini and it is possible that metal-working and cult activities (more visible in the
next period) had already begun to concentrate in certain areas.^15 The dead were generally
confi ned to cemeteries, but occasionally placed beside residential structures, evidently in
connection with particular rituals or status considerations in certain cases.^16 Other kinds
of cult places in open or enclosed spaces may also have been present.^17 In general, one
might envisage rather sprawling settlements with funerary and corresponding residential
zones of clustered free-standing houses (employing timber frameworks, wattle, daub