- Maria Anna De Lucia Brolli and Jacopo Tabolli –
one of the gateways of Etruria. Recent excavations, still largely unpublished, highlight
the cultural relevance of Nepi to the Faliscan territory, nor was it devoid of external
infl uences, especially from Narce and Veii (Rizzo 1996). Several sites of the Ager Faliscus
such as Falerii, Narce and Nepi have furnished evidence of a phase of uninterrupted
occupation from the Middle Bronze Age until the end of the Final Bronze Age (Gennaro
1982, 1986, Barbaro 2011). Following the witness of the oldest villages of the Bronze
Age there follows in the First Iron Age (ninth century bc according to traditional
chronology) a period of depopulation of the area indicated by the complete absence of
data (Gennaro 1986). The proto-urban revolution involving southern Etruria also sees
the entire Faliscan territory participate in the synoecism of Veii. The repopulation of
the Ager Faliscus is attested both at Falerii and Narce, and seems to be concentrated in
the fi rst half of the eighth century bc. To the thrust of Italic population, movements are
added, especially at Narce, a minority participation by the same Etruscans from Veii in an
analogy of the well-known rite of ver sacrum (“sacred Spring” – Colonna 1986, Baglione
and De Lucia Brolli 1990, Tabolli 2012 forthcoming).
It is especially in the main centers of Falerii and Narce that the archaeological record
allows us to follow the history and dynamics of development of settlements through the
different phases (De Lucia Brolli and Baglione 1997). In the second half of the eighth
century bc the formation of settlements leads to two different solutions. At Falerii we
are witnessing a gradual occupation of the two nuclei that will form the village, the high
point of Vignale and, from the last decade of the eighth century bc, the adjacent larger
plateau. So the necropolis of Montarano, associated with the fi rst settlement on Vignale,
is succeeded by the establishment of the burial grounds of Penna and Valsiarosa to mark
the western boundary of the town (Fig. 14.5). At Narce, instead, the settlement now
involves the three main hills of Narce, Monte Li Santi and Pizzo Piede, which together
Figure 14.5 Map of Falerii drawn by Adolfo Cozza in 1889.