CHAPTER FIVE

THE VILLANOVAN CULTURE: AT THE

BEGINNING OF ETRUSCAN HISTORY

Gilda Bartoloni

T

he beginning of the cultural processes that would be concluded in the early Iron
Age by the concentration of settlements at the sites of future Etruscan cities, in all
likelihood is to be recognized in the Late Bronze Age, that is, in the second half of the
second millennium bc. After a period of general cultural uniformity in ancient Italy, in
the course of the tenth century bc there began to appear well-delineated areas equivalent
to the large regions or territories that, in historic times, would correspond to well-defi ned
ethnoi: the Veneti, Etruscans, Latins, Sabines. The culture associated with the territory
ultimately occupied by the Etruscans is defi ned as “Villanovan.” Villanovan is understood
as a system of customs, a typical expression of material civilization of the zone that would
be historically Etruscan, namely that large area that diagonally crosses Italy, from the
eastern basin of the Po to the central Tyrrhenian and fi nally to the Tiber, and which from
there expanded into Campania.
The name comes from the accidental discovery made in 1853 by Giovanni Gozzadini
at Villanova (approx. 8 km east of Bologna) of a series of cremation tombs: the ritual is
characterized by the deposition of skeletal remains in vases of impasto (that is, of clay
that is not purifi ed, and is handmade and fi red at a relatively low temperature). The
urns are commonly defi ned as biconical because of their shape (similar to two juxtaposed
truncated cones); for the most part they were covered by bowls also of black impasto.
The cremation ritual is also represented by more or less valuable ornaments or other
belongings of the deceased (especially fi bulae, bracelets, necklaces, weapons, razors, etc.)
and additional impasto ceramics (jugs, bowls, plates etc.). This defi nition of Villanovan
was later extended to analogous funerary assemblages at Bologna, Tarquinia, Bisenzio,
and other sites in Tyrrhenian Etruria, and then, as they were brought to light, to fi nds at
the villages related to these necropoleis.
A continuity of life is well documented in the major Etruscan cities ever since the last
phase of the Bronze Age (“Final Bronze Age”). Between the end of the Bronze Age and
the beginning of the Iron Age, around the turn of the tenth century bc, the population
almost completely abandons the sites of the previous period in order to settle in groups
of a few hundred individuals in the territories of Veii, Tarquinia, Vulci etc., occupying