- Gilda Bartoloni –
distinct nuclei in the broad plains and adjacent hills. The Etruscans themselves traced
the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the eleventh or tenth century
bc: Varro (in Censorinus, De die natali 17.5–6 and Servius, Commentary on Aeneid 8.526)
reports that the Etruscan Libri rituales (“Books of rituals”) showed that the duration of
the nomen Etruscum (literally “Etruscan name,” meaning the Etruscan civilization) would
not have exceeded ten “centuries;” Servius also notes (Commentary on Eclogue 9.46) that
Augustus believed, on the basis of the teachings of the haruspices (divination priests),
that during his reign the tenth saeculum (age, “century”) would begin, the time of the end
of the Etruscan people.
In the fi nal phase of the Bronze Age (mid-twelfth to tenth century bc) the disposition
of settlements appears to be better distributed, although they are no longer connected
to the paths of the tratturi (drove roads for transhumance of fl ocks and herds) as they had
been during the Middle Bronze Age. As evidence of the intensive exploitation of land
and continuous population growth there are now known in Etruria at least 70 confi rmed
settlements, and several more sites with indications of at least temporary occupation. The
typical town of this chronological phase generally occupies high ground or a tufa plateau
of more than fi ve hectares, isolated at the confl uence of two watercourses. These small
plateaus, naturally or artifi cially protected, are not completely built up: non-residential
areas within the defenses were probably intended as collecting points for livestock or
zones reserved for cultivation, land used only by certain groups, or areas designated for
shelter in case of enemy attack.
For a number of years now the site of Castellaccio di Sorgenti della Nova (at the
“Sources of the Nova” river) has hosted systematic research which shows a settlement
articulated on the summit and on various terraces, naturally fortifi ed and defended
by steep walls and surrounded by two confl uent ditches. The large terraced areas cut
deeply into the fl anks of the cliff. Its “urbanized” organization is quite complex: on
the summit plateau are located houses of modest dimensions with sunken foundations
and superstructure of perishable material, suitable to accommodate nuclear families; on
the sides of the artifi cially terraced cliff, there open numerous artifi cial caves adapted
for occupation, for places of worship, and for service facilities, while on the terraces in
front, large houses intended for extended families were built along a small canal with
foundations on an elliptical plan. Alongside the domestic structures are added rooms/
structures of the same plan and construction technique but more or less reduced in size,
probably used as storerooms and repositories; it has been thought that some of these
small rooms were intended to house domestic animals. In the artifi cial caves at Sorgenti
della Nova there were also exceptionally well-preserved ovens with domed walls of fi red
clay and braziers (focolari) for cooking food.
In other settlements (in Monte Rovello near Allumiere and at Luni on the Mignone
River) structures of imposing dimensions (15–17 meters long and 8–9 meters wide)
and rectangular plans have been identifi ed, with the roof resting directly on a low bank
of earth or stones. Probably these represent the homes of the heads of their respective
communities, intended also for political and religious functions.
The funeral ritual can be documented systematically from the twelfth century bc,
when the cremation of the dead begins to appear and then to prevail. This ritual, which
corresponds to that of the Urnfi elds culture (Urnenfeldern) of continental Europe, spread
from the Alps to the north-eastern tip of Sicily in the Final phase of the Bronze Age, and
is generally defi ned as “Protovillanovan,” determined by its cultural affi nity with the