- Geof Kron –
and most likely in the fi rst millennium bc (see also Brisighelli et al. 2009 for a similar
date). This is hardly surprising, for any number of reasons, most notably: 1) the dramatic
expansion of Italian, and particularly Etruscan contacts with Greek, Phoenician and
Carthaginian traders, artisans and colonists, in Italy and throughout the Mediterranean
(Kracht 1991: 50–68, 80–5; Krinzinger 2000; Camporeale 2001: passim; Fletcher 2007;
Bezecky 2008; Bourdin 2011); 2) the signifi cant Etruscan import of chattel slaves from
the Aegean and beyond, and the even more dramatic changes likely with the Roman
conquest of Etruria and Italy; and 3) the expansion of the Roman hegemony (with its
stimulus not only to the import of chattel slaves, but to the immigration of free peregrini
from throughout the empire), continuing through the invasions of the Goths, Huns and
Lombards (Heather 2009).
As Ward-Perkins, Perkins, Luraghi (2008) and also, more controversially, James
(1999), emphasize, the late nineteenth and twentieth-century obsession with notions of
race and ethnicity only confuses our reading of many ancient societies, given the relative
willingness of the Greeks and Romans to accept people into their community based on
shared political or cultural values, rather than ethnicity or direct descent (pace Isaac 2004),
and their relative indifference to the notion of fi xed ethnic groups based on kinship. One
intriguing study (Coppa et al. 1998), for example, notes a great deal of homogeneity
in morphological traits through much of Italy, including across the Apennines, and
points out that the most important changes are in fact diachronic, presumably related to
developments in lifestyle and culture. It is ultimately more helpful, therefore, particularly
at this stage, to concentrate on social and cultural changes, and changes in diet, nutrition
and health standards, if we want to exploit the evidence of physical anthropology in order
to understand Etruscan society.
We face a number of challenges, however, in offering a full and up-to-date synthesis.
Most of the important Etruscan necropoleis, such as those at Tarquinia, for example, have
been thoroughly looted from Antiquity, leading to signifi cant damage to the skeletal
remains (Becker 2002: 691), moreover, since they have been relatively well-known and
celebrated for centuries for their elaborate, well-appointed and often lavishly decorated
tombs, many were poorly and unscientifi cally excavated decades or centuries ago, generally
with limited attention to skeletal remains. Moreover, many anthropometric studies date
from the beginnings of the science, and, at least until relatively recently, modern studies
have, as we have already alluded, concentrated on morphological analyses of skulls and
teeth, at times failing to consistently study or at least publish, and sometimes even
to preserve, many long bones. A serious complication comes from the habit of many
Italian physical anthropologists, through the 1970s and even the 1980s, and a few
partisans of low-height estimates even today (Capasso 2001; for which cf. Becker 2003
and Lazer 2009: 182–3; Giannecchini and Moggi-Cecchi 2008: 290, Table 6) to favor
using the less reliable and out of date Pearson and Manouvrier methods for estimating
stature. Such methods may be adequate, perhaps, for some of the stunted populations of
nineteenth century Western Europe, and for many very short Neolithic and early Bronze
Age populations, but are likely to underestimate heights by 2–3 cm or more for taller
Greco-Roman and Medieval populations, as has been confi rmed by detailed studies using
in situ measurements and the Fully-Pineau (1960) anatomical method (Bolsden 1984;
Formicola 1993; Becker 1999b; Kron 2005: 79–81). Moreover, many not only use a
range of methods to calculate stature, but also fail to publish the actual long bone lengths
and other critical anthropometric data, which would allow stature and other data to be