Italian history did not begin with Rome. Before that city was founded around 750 BC, many other cultures flourished in what is now central Italy.

Archaeologists divide the pre-Roman history of central Italy into three periods:

• Proto-Villanovan (1200 BC – 1000 BC)
• Villanovan (1000 BC – 750 BC)
• Etruscan (750 BC – 300 BC)

At one time researchers thought these were three separate cultures. Today, they tend to consider them three phases of a single, evolving culture.

Etruscan civilization map
Courtesy Wikimedia

These people, known generally as the Etruscans, lived in Tuscany, a section of west-central Italy just north of Rome. (Indeed, the name “Tuscany” derives from the Latin word for "Etruscan.")

In the first phase of Etruscan culture, the Proto-Villanovan, small groups of one-room huts dotted the top of an Italian plateau An oval of wooden poles embedded in the soft rock supports a thatched roof. Rods and twigs, interwoven between the poles and covered in clay, form the walls. Simple ditches and fences around the huts provide pens for pigs, sheep and cattle, while the rest of the plateau supported beans, barley and wheat crops.

During the Villanovan period, these sites grew into cities and towns, many with cemeteries established nearby. The name “Villanovan” comes from an Italian town of the same name, near Bologna, where archaeologists first uncovered evidence of this culture.

This wall mural at the British Museum in London shows examples of typical Etruscan dress.
Courtesy Sandra Whiteway

A loose confederation of 12 city-states, the Etruscans dominated much of Italy for over four centuries. (At the time, Rome was a small city, just south of Etruscan territory.) Renowned mariners, the Etruscans had a great deal of contact with the flourishing cultures in Greece and the Near East, and were greatly influenced by them. Indeed, the Etruscan transmitted the cultural and artistic achievements of the Golden Age of Greece to the early Romans. The Romans began conquering the Etruscans in 396 BC, and absorbed the people and their culture into their fledgling Republic.

The Etruscan countryside today
Courtesy aeminphilly

Dead men do tell tales

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