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Concept
Proto-Villanovan culture
Summary
The Proto-Villanovan culture was a late Bronze Age culture that appeared in Italy in the first half of the 12th century BC and lasted until the 10th century BC, part of the central European Urnfield culture system (1300-750 BCE).
Proto-Villanovan culture was part of the central European Urnfield culture system. Similarity in particular has been noted with the regional groups of Bavaria-Upper Austria and of the middle-Danube. Furthermore the Proto-Villanovan culture shows affinities with both the Lusatian and Canegrate cultures. Another hypothesis, however, is that it was a derivation from the previous Terramare culture of the Po Valley. The burial characteristics relate the Proto-Villanovan culture to the Central European Urnfield culture and Celtic Hallstatt culture that succeeded it. It is not possible to tell these apart in their earlier stages. Various authors, such as Marija Gimbutas, associated this culture with the arrival, or the spread, of the proto-Italics into the Italian peninsula.
Proto-Villanovan sites are present all over the Italian peninsula, mostly in the northern-central part but also, to a lesser degree, in Southern Italy and eastern Sicily. Among the most important of these sites are: Frattesina (Veneto), Bismantova and Ripa Calbana (Emilia-Romagna), Cetona and Saturnia (Tuscany), Monti della Tolfa (Lazio), Pianello di Genga and Ancona (Marche), Ortucchio (Abruzzo), Timmari (Basilicata), Canosa (Apulia), Tropea (Calabria) and Milazzo (Sicily).
Settlements, usually of small dimensions, were generally built on hills and circumscribed with fortifications. The economy was mostly based on agro-pastoral activities, metallurgy and trades.
The proto-Villanovans practiced cremation. The ashes were placed in Urnfield-style double-cone shaped funerary urns, often decorated with geometric designs, and then buried in the ground. Elite graves containing jewellery, bronze armour and horse harness fittings were separated from ordinary graves, showing for the first time the development of a highly hierarchical society, so characteristic of Indo-European cultures.
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