Villanovan Culture in 900BC

The Villanovan culture was the earliest Iron Age culture of central and northern Italy, abruptly following the Bronze Age Terramare culture and giving way in the 7th century BC to an increasingly orientalizing culture influenced by Greek traders, which was followed without a severe break by the Etruscan civilization. Villanovan cultural origins, but perhaps not all its peoples, lay in the Eastern Alps, with connections to the Halstatt culture. The Villanovans introduced iron-working to the Italian peninsula; they practiced cremation and buried the ashes of their dead in pottery urns of distinctive double-cone shape. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Iron Age Axe found on Gotland This article is about the archaeological period known as the Iron Age, for the mythological Iron Age see Iron Age (mythology). ... The Bronze Age is a period in a civilizations development when the most advanced metalworking has developed the techniques of smelting copper from natural outcroppings and alloys it to cast bronze. ... A simplified map showing the Terramare culture c 1200 BC (blue area). ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 7th century BC started on January 1, 700 BC and ended on December 31, 601 BC. // Overview Events Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria who created the the first systematically collected library at Nineveh A 16th century depiction of the Hanging Gardens of... Extent of Etruscan civilization and the twelve Etruscan League cities. ... The Hallstatt culture is named for is type site, Hallstatt a lakeside village in the Austrian Salzkammergut southwest of Salzburg, where a large prehistoric cemetery, eventually extending to 1045 burials was discovered by Ramsauer beginning in 1846 and excavated during the second half of the 19th century. ... Satellite view of the Peninsula in spring The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula (Italian: Penisola italiana or Penisola appenninica) is one of the greatest peninsulas of Europe, spanning 1,000 km from the Alps in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. ... The crematorium at Haycombe Cemetery, Bath, England. ...

The culture is broadly divided into a proto-Villanovan culture (Villanovan I) from 1100 BC to 900 BC and the Villanovan culture proper (Villanovan II) from 900 BC to 700 BC, when the Etruscan cities began to be founded. (Redirected from 1100 BC) Centuries: 13th century BC - 12th century BC - 11th century BC Decades: 1150s BC 1140s BC 1130s BC 1120s BC 1110s BC - 1100s BC - 1090s BC 1080s BC 1070s BC 1060s BC 1050s BC Events and Trends 1100 BC - Tiglath-Pileser I of Assyria conquers the Hittites... Centuries: 11th century BC - 10th century BC - 9th century BC Decades: 950s BC 940s BC 930s BC 920s BC 910s BC - 900s BC - 890s BC 880s BC 870s BC 860s BC 850s BC Events and Trends 909 BC - Zhou xiao wang becomes King of the Zhou Dynasty of China. ... Centuries: 11th century BC - 10th century BC - 9th century BC Decades: 950s BC 940s BC 930s BC 920s BC 910s BC - 900s BC - 890s BC 880s BC 870s BC 860s BC 850s BC Events and Trends 909 BC - Zhou xiao wang becomes King of the Zhou Dynasty of China. ... Centuries: 9th century BC - 8th century BC - 7th century BC Decades: 750s BC 740s BC 730s BC 720s BC 710s BC - 700s BC - 690s BC 680s BC 670s BC 660s BC 650s BC Events and Trends 708 BC - Spartan immigrants found Taras (Tarentum, the modern Taranto) colony in southern Italy. ...

The name Villanovan comes from the type-site, that of the first archaeological finds relating to this advanced culture, remnants of a cemetery found near Villanova (Castenaso, 8 kilometers south-east of Bologna) in northern Italy. The excavatation lasting from 1853 to 1855 was made by the scholarly owner, count Giovanni Gozzadini, and involved 193 tombs, six of which were separated from the rest as if to signify a special social status. The "well tomb" pit graves lined with stones contained funerary urns; they were only spontaneously plundered and most were untouched. In 1893, a chance discovery unearthed another distinctive Villanovan necropolis at Verruchio, overlooking the Adriatic coastal plain. Castenaso is a town in the province of Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. ... Bologna (IPA , from Latin Bononia, BulÃ¥ggna in Emiliano-Romagnolo) is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, in the Pianura Padana, between the Po River and the Apennines, exactly between the Reno River and the Sàvena River. ... Northern Italy encompasses nine of the countrys 20 autonomous regions: Emilia-Romagna Friuli-Venezia Giulia Liguria Lombardia Piemonte Toscana Trentino-Alto Adige Valle dAosta Veneto Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige and Valle dAosta are regions with a special statute. ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Year 1855 (MDCCCLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... The Towers of Bologna Giovanni Gozzadini (15 October 1810 - August 25, 1887) was an Italian archeologist. ... Maya funerary urn For the computing term, see URN. An urn is a vase, ordinarily covered and without handles that usually has a narrowed neck above a footed pedestal. ... Year 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...

Generally speaking, Villanovan settlements were centered in the Po River valley and Etruria round Bologna—later an important Etruscan center—and areas in Emilia Romagna (at Verruchio and Fermi), in Tuscany and Lazio. Further south, in Campania, a region where inhumation was the general practice, Villanovan cremation burials have been identified at Capua, at the "princely tombs" of Pontecagnano near Salerno (finds conserved in the Museum of Agro Picentino) and at Sala Consilina. Small scattered Villanovan settlements have left few traces other than their more permanent burial sites set somewhat apart from the settlements, largely because the settlement sites were built over in Etruscan times. This site continuity encourages modern opinion generally to follow Massimo Pallottino in regarding the Villanovan culture as ancestral to the Etruscan civilization. The area covered by the Etruscan civilzation. ... Bologna (IPA , from Latin Bononia, BulÃ¥ggna in Emiliano-Romagnolo) is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, in the Pianura Padana, between the Po River and the Apennines, exactly between the Reno River and the Sàvena River. ... Emilia-Romagna is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. ... Enrico Fermi (September 29, 1901 – November 28, 1954) was an Italian physicist most noted for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, particle physics and statistical mechanics. ... Tuscany (Italian: ) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. ... For the football club, see S.S. Lazio Lazio (Latium in Latin) is a regione of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzi, Marche, Molise, Campania and the Tyrrhenian Sea. ... Capua is a city in the province of Caserta, (Campania, Italy) situated 25 km (16 mi) north of Napoli, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. ... Salerno is a town in Campania, south-western Italy, the capital of the province of the same name. ... Extent of Etruscan civilization and the twelve Etruscan League cities. ...

The burial characteristics relate the Villanovan culture to the central European Urnfield culture (c. 1300 -750 bce), for example the Hallstatt culture (which succeeded the Urnfield culture). Cremated remains were placed in cinerary urns and then buried. A custom believed to originate with the Villanovan culture is the usage of "Hut urns", cinerary urns fashioned like small huts, and other advanced urn designs. Typical sgraffiato decoration of swastikas, meanders and squares were scratched with a comb-like tool. Urns were accompanied by simple bronze fibulae, razors and rings. The Urnfield culture of central European culture is dated roughly between 1300 BC and 750 BC. The name describes the custom of cremating the dead and placing them in cemeteries. ... The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture during the local Bronze Age, and introduced the Iron Age. ... For other uses see fibula (disambiguation) The fibula or calf bone is a bone placed on the lateral side of the tibia, with which it is connected above and below. ...

The later phase (Villanovan II) saw radical changes, evidence of contact with Hellenic civilization and trade with the north along the Amber Road: glass and amber necklaces on women, bronze armor and horse harness fittings, and the development of elite graves in contrast to the earlier egalitarian culture (note- this assumption is probably incorrect, settlement and grave sites provide indications that the earlier phases were probably feudal). Chamber tombs and exhumation practices were developed side-by-side with the earlier cremation practices. The Amber Road (in Lithuanian: Gintaro kelias; Polish: Szlak Bursztynowy, Jantarowy Szlak; in German: Bernsteinstraße; in Hungarian: Borostyán út, in Russian: Янтарный путь) was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber. ...

These cultural traces may not be directly equivalent to a widespread ethnic culture that identified itself as the equivalent of "Villanovan", Renato Peroni has suggested; they tend to underlie those of both Celtic and Italic provenance, adding to the difficulties in assessing who "founded" the culture. This article is about the European people. ... The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ...

Sources and further reading

• S. Gozzadini: La nécropole de Villanova, Fava et Garagnani, Bologna, 1870
• J. P. Mallory, "Villanovan Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, (Fitzroy Dearborn), 1997.
• G. Bartoloni, "The origin and diffusion of Villanovan culture." in M. Torelli, (editor) The Etruscans, pp 53-74. (Milan), 2000.
• M.E. Moser, The "Southern Villanovan" Culture of Campania, (Ann Arbor), 1982.
• D. Ridgway, "The Villanovan Cemeteries of Bologna and Pontecagnano" in Journal of Roman Archaeology 7: pp 303–16 (1994)

JP Mallory is the nom-de-plume of Irish-American archaeologist and Indo-Europeanist Prof. ... The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture or EIEC, edited by James P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams, was published in 1997 by Fitzroy Dearborn. ...

External links

• Museo Archeologico di Verucchio: Villanovan necropolis (in English)
• Ashmolean Museum: Ancient Italy Before the Romans