Villanovans (Italici)

Villanovan is the name given by archaeologists to a prehistoric culture found primarily in present-day north-central Italy Villanovans are known primarily from their cemeteries, which contain distinctive urns of usually cremated remains, accompanied sometimes by bronze decorations and iron weapons and tools. The civilization of the ETRUSCANS developed from the Villanovan culture, many Etruscan cities being sited on Villanovan towns.

VILLANOVANS

Location:

North-central Italy

Time period:

C. 1100 to fifth century B. C.E.

Ancestry:

Villanovan

Language:

Villanovan

Villanovans time line

B. C.E.

C. 1200-900 Proto-Villanovans, people of a Late Bronze Age culture, live around Po valley; inhabitants of small agricultural villages in Italy develop into Villanovans.

C. 900 Early Iron Age culture agricultural villages grow larger; iron tools and mining of metal ore develop; bronze becomes adornment; trade from eastern Mediterranean increases.

Eighth century Etruscan city-states form loose federation.

ORIGINS

The Villanovans were first discovered by the excavations at a villa known as Villanova, outside Bologna, in 1853. A cemetery brought to light the Villanovans’ burial practices. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries archaeologists considered the Villanovans as invaders from central Europe, identifying their burial practices and metal objects first with the Hallstatt culture of the eastern Alps, and with other Iron Age cultures around the Danube River in central Europe. Later discoveries and the presence of undisturbed continuity through the Bronze Age into the Iron Age at Villanovan sites indicated that the people themselves were not invaders, and that the culture developed indigenously, with the aid of trade from central Europe and the East.

It is now believed that by about 1200 B. C.E. a Late Bronze Age people centered around the Po valley in north-central Italy, defined as proto-Villanovans, had developed out of the earlier Pianello culture. The proto-Villanovans lived in small agricultural villages and used bronze weapons and tools. By about 900 B. C.E. the small villages had grown larger, the process for smelting iron had been discovered or introduced from central Europe, and the area began to receive trade from the eastern Mediterranean. With these influences the proto-Villanovans evolved into those people defined as Villanovans, and their urban centers developed around the mining of metal ores in the ore-rich hills of Italy.

HISTORY

The Villanovans developed new manufacturing techniques for making bronze decorations and iron implements, and their economy flourished through trading of these items. The Villanovans spread from the Po valley through present-day Tuscany, into Latium (part of modern Lazio) and the Adriatic coast, and south of modern-day Salerno in Campania.

The Villanovans developed under the influence of foreign cultures, having contacts with the Phoenicians on the west coast and in the eighth century B. C.E. encountering the Greeks who settled southern Italy. By that time inhumation began to replace cremation in Villanovan burials, and the larger Villanovan towns developed into city-states.

CULTURE

Economy

The Villanovan economy ran on the manufacture and trade of metal items. The Villanovans controlled several important copper and iron mines in Tuscany.

Dwellings and Architecture

What is known of Villanovan architecture is derived from the burials of the Villanovans in Latium, sometimes differentiated as the Latial culture. From these depictions it can be discerned that they lived in wattle-and-daub huts on pole frames. These huts were rounded or oval and had smoke outlets and a door that opened. The roofs were gabled and sloping. Decorations on the urns suggest that there were windows.

Because their houses were constructed almost entirely of perishable materials, only trace evidence of their villages has been found, indicating collections of such huts constructed on hilltops.

Other Technologies

The Villanovans made and used short iron swords, some of which found their way through the Greeks to Olympia. The Villanovans also made and wore bronze fibulae, a kind of decorated brooch, the ancient equivalent of the safety pin used to fasten clothing. They were also skilled at making flat sheet bronze, from which they crafted situlae, bucket-shaped vessels, and made pottery.

Art

Villanovan urns are decorated with painted meanders, double slings, swastikas, and roses. Villanovan art reveals little representation of the human figure, but small terra-cotta animals were crafted, possibly for use as votive offerings. Artifacts in bronze are plentiful.

Religion: Burials

The characteristic Villanovan burial was cremation, with the ashes deposited in a decorated multistoried biconical urn, capped by a bronze helmet, or a pottery helmet or cup. The helmet was often crested, or in the knob and bell style, similar to those found in northern and central Europe. Other urns contained bronze and iron artifacts, decorations, tools, and weapons. The urns for a burial were placed in a deep shaft called a pozzo and covered with a stone slab. The principal Villanovan cemeteries are at Bologna, Este, Golasecca, Oppiano, Rivoli, Trezzo, and Villanova. From the eighth century b. c.e. on the Villanovans practiced inhumation instead of cremation, following the custom of the Greeks.

The fact that peoples in ancient Tuscany have been given different names at different times has obscured the continutity of their development from Villanovan to Etruscan times. The two names illustrate how practitioners of different disciplines, observing people from different perspectives, may give an impression of distinctions that do not exist. The Villanovans, named as is common practice among archaeologists for the village near where their material culture was first identified, are known only for objects. The picture of Etruscans, derived in part by accounts from ancient writers, is much more fully developed and vivid than archeology alone can provide.

Further Reading

Robert F Paget. Central Italy: An Archaeological Guide: The Prehistoric, Villanovan, Etruscan, Samnite, Italic, and Roman Remains, and the Ancient Road Systems (London: Faber, 1973).

David Ridgway. Italy before the Romans: The Iron Age (New York: Academic, 1997).

David H. Trump. Central and Southern Italy before Rome (New York: Praeger, 1965).