Ethnicity and the Etruscans 417Figure 27.4 Bronze statue of Aule Meteli. Florence, Archaeological Museum, first centuryBCE.
By permission of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana-Firenze.
Biology
There is a growing interest in the biological characteristics of the Etruscans, chiefly
because a reliable scientific workup on the physical anthropology of the Etruscans might
help solve the problem of Etruscan origins. The interest is not new, having been broached
in the nineteenth century and then in a symposium in 1958 devoted to biology and
Etruscan origins (Wolstenholme and O’Connor 1959). At that time, Barnicot and Broth-
well measured a group of skulls labeled as Etruscan in the British Museum; they were
impressed with the similarity of those skulls to those of modern populations, suggesting
that the Etruscans were not intrusive in Europe. In 1980, a detailed metric and mor-
phological study of a population sample from Tarquinia of 56 males and females found
a strongly homogeneous group, mesocranial and of medium/tall height (Mallegni, For-
naciari, and Tarabella 1980). The authors found comparable results in studies of skeletal
remains at Cerveteri and Vulci by other scientists, and argued that the emerging picture
supported the idea of an autochthonous people.
Most recently, there have been several studies of DNA and the Etruscans, including
an astonishing Internet headliner that the Etruscans’ origin in the East was confirmed
by similarities in the DNA of modern cattle in Turkey and Tuscany (Perkins 2009: 95).