Prehistoric Italy

The evidence of the presence of hominids on the Apennine Peninsula in the Early Pleistocene (1.3–1.6 million years ago) is the finding of stone tools in Pirro 13 (Pirro Nord, Apricena, Foggia, southern Italy) ^[1] . Silicon tools 1.7 million years old ^{[2] [3]} were found in Puglia .

The oldest human remains found in Italy are the milk tooth of a Heidelberg man from the cave site of Isernia la Pineta ( de: Isernia la Pineta ) aged 561-583 thousand years ^[4] . Near Ceprano , a human skull cap of the species Homo cepranensis was discovered ^[5] . The age of the fossil ranges from 350 thousand to 500 thousand years ^[6] . Several teeth of a Heidelberg man from the Fountain of Ranuccio (Frosinone, Lazio) date from the age of 458 thousand liters. n ^{[7] [8] The} bone remains of Homo erectus from Pofi ( Frosinone , Lazio) date back to the age of 400 - 500 thousand years ^[9] . Four teeth and a jaw fragment from Visogliano (Friuli) of the species Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis are dated 400–500 thousand years old ^[10] . According to anthropologists, teeth from the sites of the Fontana Ranuccio and Visoliano 450 thousand years ago (MIS 12) have Neanderthal features in their structure ^{[11] [12]} .

Neanderthal skulls of Saccopastore date from about 250 thousand years of age ^[13] . The oldest Neanderthal man from whom he managed to extract genetic information is a person from Altamura ( it: Uomo di Altamura ), who lived 130.1 thousand - 172 thousand years ago ^[14] . About 170 thousand years ago, in the parking lot of Poggetti of Vekia (south of Tuscany), Neanderthals used fire to make wooden tools ^[15] .

In the limestone cave of Grotta del Cavallo ( de: Grotta del Cavallo ) on the peninsula of Salentina (Apulia), two sapiens teeth were discovered in 1964 dating back to the age of 43–45 thousand years ago in the layer with the tools of the Uluzzo culture ( de: Uluzzien ) ^{[ 16]} .

In the cave of Fumane ( it: Grotta di Fumane ), in a layer aged 41 110 - 38 500 years ( protoignac ), a rational human tooth was discovered whose mitochondrial genome belongs to the haplogroup R * ^[17] .

In the Palichchi cave, the oldest remains of Cro-Magnons in Italy, belonging to the Aurignac and Gravettian cultures, were found about 34 thousand - 28 thousand years ago (uncalibrated dating) ^[18] .

In the Late Paleolithic, the territory of Italy was occupied by epigrawett culture . The end of the last glaciation affected Italy to a much lesser extent than the regions located to the north of it, therefore, here for quite a long time, until the arrival of carriers of Neolithic technology, the remains of the Paleolithic, known as epipaleolithic , were preserved.

Starting from 6 thousand BC e. the territory of Italy is actively colonized by the culture of cardial ceramics (impressiono), possibly of North African origin, which brought with it some Neolithic technology. The name of the culture is due to the fact that its ceramics was decorated with imprints of shells "cardium". It was a culture of seafarers and fishermen, actively exploring coastal, and then river regions. From Italy, this culture spread to the territory of Iberia and France, as well as to the west, to the Adriatic (the Adriatic Sea east of Italy), where the extreme point of its distribution was the settlement of Sesco, which gave the name to another, competing Neolithic culture from the group of painted ceramic cultures.

Around 5000 BC e. the westward movement of Sesclaw culture begins Its carriers penetrate the south of Italy, where they displace carriers of cardiac ceramics and establish the culture of Matera Ostuni. Later, a number of other cultures developed at its base, including Capri Ripoli .

Around 3800 BC e. a new group of aliens from the east penetrates south of Italy. They found, in particular, the cultures of Serra d'Alto , Diana, Gaudo, Castellluccio, Piano Notaro, Bonu Igin. Further, these newcomers move to Spain, where they found the early culture of Los Millares, Zambujal, as well as the late Balearic hypogee.

Throughout the Neolithic and the subsequent copper age, the development of prehistoric Malta and Sicily took place almost simultaneously.

Gems

Kamuns - an ancient people whose origin is not exactly established (Pliny the Elder refers them to the Euganeans, and Strabo to the Retas), who settled in the valley of Val Kamonika (aka Kamunov Valley).

The culture of ancient kamuns, mainly engaged in hunting, grazing, and agriculture, reached its peak during the Iron Age thanks to the numerous mines located in Val Kamonika.

The great interest of historians in this nationality is also caused by the numerous rock paintings in the Val Camonica valley , that is, in the places where the stones live. They were found approximately 350,000 (the highest density of rock paintings in Europe). They relate to the period from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages, that is, only a small part of them relates to the Kamunka people themselves. One of the most famous petroglyphs is considered the "Kamunka rose", which was adopted as the official symbol of the Lombardy region.

The Kamuns most likely possessed their own special language. There are no books or texts on it, only tombstones and cave inscriptions compiled using the North Etruscan alphabet .

Nuraga Builders

Originating and developing in Sardinia , the Nurag culture also spread to Corsica . It covers the time period from the beginning of the Bronze Age (from 1700 BC ) and up to the II century BC. e., in the Roman era. This culture owes its name to the characteristic nurag towers, which are its most eloquent monuments, and became a product of the evolution of the preceding megalithic culture that created dolmens and menhirs .

Nuragic towers are considered by scientists to be the largest and well-preserved group of megalithic monuments in Europe. The question of their purpose remains open: they were considered as monumental tombs, dwellings of giants, fortifications, metal melting furnaces, prisons or temples dedicated to the cult of the sun.

As warriors and sailors, the Sardis traded with other Mediterranean peoples. Precious objects have been discovered in numerous nuragic complexes. Such as: pieces of Baltic amber, bronze figurines (bronzetto) depicting warriors, monkeys and other African animals, a large number of copper ingots, widely distributed in the eastern Mediterranean, weapons and other items of oriental decoration, Mycenaean ceramics. These findings show that this civilization was not closed, but was characterized by significant cultural and commercial exchanges with other peoples. Recent studies prove that with a high degree of probability, among the " peoples of the sea " who attacked Egypt Ramses III, the people of "ShaRDaN" could be sardis. Studies conducted by the University of Haifa in Israel (Prof. Adam Tsertal) are inclined to the same point of view: excavations in Al-Ahwat revealed obvious cultural parallels with the nuragic Sardinia. It seems that the buildings in Israel were created by people associated with the Nuragic culture, or at least familiar with it.

Sardinian civilization created not only characteristic nuragic complexes, but also numerous other architectural structures: mysterious temples called the Sacred Wells (it is believed that they were dedicated to “holy water” and associated with astronomical and lunar cycles), tombs of giants, temples of megarons, some buildings sporting and legal in nature, as well as unusual bronze statues, very exquisite for their time. Among them are bronze nuragic boats found in some significant Etruscan burials in an important place, which reveals a strong cultural, and maybe even dynastic, connection between the Nuragic and Etruscan civilizations. For a long time, this culture was one of the most influential in the western Mediterranean and, subsequently, coexisted on the island with foreign cultures ( Phoenician , Carthaginian and Roman), without being assimilated by them. This suggests that the basis of the nuragic culture was a powerful identity that was steadily transmitted to descendants.

Terramare Culture

One of the most significant pre-Indo-European cultures in northern Italy, before the arrival of the Celts, was the culture of Terramare. They lived in villages that were built according to a specific plan. The houses in these villages were built of wood and put on piles. The villages had a quadrangular shape, located on land near river channels, and the streets in them intersected at right angles according to a pre-compiled project, which was typical for fortified settlements.

Representatives of the Terramare culture settled on the Padan Plain (especially along the course of the Panaro River, between Modena and Bologna ) and the rest of Europe. The civilization associated with these settlements was developed in the middle and end of the Bronze Age , between the 17th and 12th centuries BC. uh ..

Representatives of the Terramare culture of the Emilia-Romagna region were a living embodiment of the Bronze Age trade. Their settlements were located along the trade route that crossed the Alps through the Kamonika Valley, which reached the banks of the Po River, where warehouses and ports were built in their characteristic villages to send goods along the river to its mouth, in the Adriatic , eastern Mediterranean , Aegean Sea , Crete , Asia Minor , Syria , Egypt . This product was, for example, amber from the Baltic Sea or tin from the Ore Mountains .

In their buildings, they used construction techniques on stilts on the lakes of the north and center of Italy. This technique of building houses on land, and at the same time on stilts, was specially adapted to create permanent settlements along river banks, often prone to spills. The purpose of construction in such unfavorable areas was probably related to river trade.

Ash was used as the foundation of the piles, flooring was made of fir boards; from poplar beams covered with reeds, they made a roof; walls were made of interwoven walnut branches. To prevent the floor from passing water, it was covered with clay , and the walls were protected with a mixture of clay and cow manure to protect them from the cold.

Extensive trade ties meant that the people of Terramare were exposed to the cultural influences of other Central European and Mediterranean peoples. So, towards the end of the Terramare period, the carriers of this culture, under the influence of the inhabitants of central Europe, began to cremate their dead.

In the XII century BC e. the expansion of the Illyrian peoples in the Balkans and in the Adriatic interrupted the supply of tin to the Mediterranean through the Alps. The disappearance of the settlements of Terramare in the XII century BC. e. It could also be caused by a drop in demand for amber and a general halt in trade in the eastern Mediterranean, which, in turn, was due to an invasion of the peoples of the sea . Also, the routes of amber from the Kamonika Valley moved to Tyrol (which contributed to the emergence of the Venetian Atestinian culture ).

In the following centuries, the inhabitants of Terramar left their settlements in favor of a trade route at the foot of the Apennine Mountains, which then turned into the Emiliev Road .

Despite the temporary difference of several centuries, the culture of Terramare is most likely related to the subsequent cultures of Villanova and Etruscans . In fact, the sophisticated drainage technique, the construction of dams, sewers, and sewage systems could not appear in Etruscan cities from anywhere, except from the people of Terramare, who always engaged in such work.

The connection between the Terramarians and the culture of Villanova is also traced in the custom of cremation of the dead, which spread from central Europe along the amber path, the side branch of which was the culture of Villanova. Indeed, along this path, amber was also delivered to Sardinia, where the Nurag civilization flourished.

Villanova Culture

The name comes from the village of Villanova (Castenazo district), which is located near Bologna, where between 1853 and 1856 . Giovanni Godzadini ( 1810 - 1887 ) discovered the remains of a necropolis.

The main characteristic of the Villanova culture, including the preceding “Protovillan” culture (XII-X centuries BC) of the late Bronze Age, was burial by cremation, when the ashes of the dead were placed in biconical urns (this method of burial is similar to the culture features of “funeral fields” urn "of the Danube plains, while Indo-European tribes practiced the ritual of burial of the dead in the land).

Not far from the settlements, some of which during this period reached unprecedented size and deserved the name of proto-cities, there were burial zones with characteristic graves in the form of pits, or "wells," inside lined with cobble stones and stone slabs. A typical biconical funeral urn was equipped with two horizontal handles in its widest place (one handle was always broken, possibly from ritual motifs). The urns were closed with an inverted bowl or, in some men's graves, with helmets.

Funeral items could include horse bits, curved razors (with a crescent-shaped blade), wriggling “brooches” (closed clothes pins), large pins and weapons for men or parts of belts, brooches in the form of a bow, hair spirals and weaving accessories for women . In addition to the bins themselves and their lids, almost no other ceramic objects are found in burials. The urns are characterized by a wide variety of shapes, their walls are very thick (this requires a high firing temperature, which indicates a significant specialization of crafts). They are decorated with engraving, which was applied with tools with several blades. Geometric motifs prevail.

The huts and other residential buildings (as far as one can conclude from the traces discovered during the excavation, and from the urns made in the form of huts) were built according to an elliptical, circular, rectangular or square plan of wood and clay. Doorways were made in the narrowest side of the house; in order to let out smoke from the hearth, holes were made in the roof, and windows were made in some huts.

At first, their society was weakly stratified, engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry, but gradually professional crafts (especially metallurgy and ceramics) allowed to accumulate wealth and laid the foundation for the division of society into classes.

From the 9th century BC e. the population begins to leave the heights that, for reasons of defense, were settled in the previous period, preferring the plateaus and adjacent hills, in order to better use agricultural and mineral resources. The settlements in this period are characterized by their greater concentration and location close to the natural routes of communication and the natural river, lake and sea moorings.

In the Tuscan region and in the northern part of the Lazio region, continuous demographic growth and constant contacts, not always peaceful, with other prehistoric settlements led to the birth of large centers of population through the merger of even nearby villages. Starting from the 9th century BC e. In this way, the foundations of settlements are laid, which then turn into large Etruscan cities, such as Volterra , Chiusi, Vetulonia, Orvieto , Vulchi , Roselle, Tarquinia , Cerveteri , Veija .

Polad Culture

The culture of Polada or the culture of pile constructions, widespread in Northern Italy, is similar in origin to the culture of Remedello culture and Vucedol culture . Dates XIV-XIII centuries. BC.

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