Terramare, terramara, or terremare is a
technology complex mainly of the central
Po valley
The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain ( it, Pianura Padana , or ''Val Padana'') is a major geographical feature of Northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetic ex ...
, in
Emilia
Emilia may refer to:
People
* Emilia (given name), list of people with this name
Places
* Emilia (region), a historical region of Italy. Reggio, Emilia
* Emilia-Romagna, an administrative region in Italy, including the historical regions of Emi ...
,
Northern Italy
Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative regions ...
, dating to the Middle and Late
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
c. 1700–1150 BC.
It takes its name from the "black earth" residue of settlement mounds. ''Terramare'' is from ''terra marna'', "marl-earth", where
marl
Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, clays, and silt. When hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae.
Marl makes up the lower part o ...
is a
lacustrine
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...
deposit. It may be any color but in agricultural lands it is most typically black, giving rise to the "black earth" identification of it.
[ The population of the terramare sites is called the terramaricoli. The sites were excavated exhaustively in 1860–1910.
These sites prior to the second half of the 19th century were commonly believed to have been used for Gallic and Roman sepulchral rites. They were called terramare and marnier by the farmers of the region, who mined the soil for fertilizer. Scientific study began with ]Bartolomeo Gastaldi
Bartolomeo Gastaldi (10 February 1818 – 5 January 1879) was an Italian geologist and palæontologist, and one of the founders of the Club Alpino Italiano.
Gastaldi was born in Turin, then capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia. As a child he develo ...
in 1860. He was investigating peat bogs and old lake sites in north Italy but did some investigations of the marnier, recognizing them finally as habitation, not funerary, sites similar to the pile dwellings
Stilt houses (also called pile dwellings or lake dwellings) are houses raised on stilts (or piles) over the surface of the soil or a body of water. Stilt houses are built primarily as a protection against flooding; they also keep out vermin. The ...
further north.
His studies attracted the attention of Pellegrino Strobel
Pellegrino Strobel (22 August 18218 June 1895) was an Italian ornithologist, zoologist, naturalist and Italian politician. He is considered among the leaders of Italian malacology and, with Gaetano Chierici and Luigi Pigorini, is an important ...
and his 18-year-old assistant, Luigi Pigorini
Luigi Pigorini (10 January 1842 – 1 April 1925) was an Italian palaeoethnologist, archaeologist and ethnographer.
Biography
Pigorini was born at Fontanellato, near Parma.
At the age of sixteen years, in 1858, he became an alumnus of the Mu ...
. In 1862 they wrote a piece concerning the Castione di Marchesi in Parma
Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...
, a Terramare site. They were the first to perceive that the settlements were prehistoric. Starting from Gaetano Chierici's theory that the pile dwellings further north represented an ancestral Roman population, Pigorini developed a theory of Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
settlement of Italy from the north.
Settlements
The Terramare, in spite of local differences, is of typical form; each settlement is trapezoidal, with streets arranged in a quadrangular pattern. Some houses are built upon piles even though the village is entirely on dry land and some are not. There is currently no commonly accepted explanation for the piles. The whole is protected by an earthwork strengthened on the inside by buttresses, and encircled by a wide moat supplied with running water. In all over 60 villages are known, almost entirely from Emilia
Emilia may refer to:
People
* Emilia (given name), list of people with this name
Places
* Emilia (region), a historical region of Italy. Reggio, Emilia
* Emilia-Romagna, an administrative region in Italy, including the historical regions of Emi ...
. In the Middle Bronze Age they are no larger than placed at an average density of 1 per . In the Late Bronze Age many sites have been abandoned and the ones that were not are larger, up to .[
The remains discovered may be briefly summarized. Stone objects are few. Of ]bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
(the chief material) axe
An axe ( sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has ma ...
s, dagger
A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or popular-use de ...
s, sword
A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed ti ...
s, razor
A razor is a bladed tool primarily used in the removal of body hair through the act of shaving. Kinds of razors include straight razors, safety razors, disposable razors, and electric razors.
While the razor has been in existence since before t ...
s, and knives are found, as also minor implements, such as sickle
A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, ei ...
s, needles, pin
A pin is a device used for fastening objects or material together.
Pin or PIN may also refer to:
Computers and technology
* Personal identification number (PIN), to access a secured system
** PIN pad, a PIN entry device
* PIN, a former Dutch ...
s, brooch
A brooch (, also ) is a decorative jewelry item designed to be attached to garments, often to fasten them together. It is usually made of metal, often silver or gold or some other material. Brooches are frequently decorated with vitreous enamel, ...
es, etc. Also remarkable is the finding of a large number of stone moulds, needed to obtain the bronze objects. There are also objects of bone
A bone is a Stiffness, rigid Organ (biology), organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red blood cell, red and white blood cells, store minerals, provid ...
and wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
, besides pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...
(both coarse and fine), amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In Ma ...
, and glass paste. Small clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
figures, chiefly of animals (though human figures are found at Castellazzo), are interesting as being practically the earliest specimens of plastic art found in Italy.
Society
The occupations of the Terramare people as compared with their Neolithic predecessors may be inferred with comparative certainty. They remained hunters, but also had domesticated animals; they were fairly skilful metallurgist
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys.
Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...
s, casting bronze in moulds of stone and clay; they were also agriculturists, cultivating bean
A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...
s, grape
A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters.
The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years ago, ...
s, wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
, and flax
Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known in ...
.
According to William Ridgeway
Sir William Ridgeway, FBA FRAI (6 August 1853 – 12 August 1926) was an Anglo-Irish classical scholar and the Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University.
Biography
Ridgeway was born 6 August 1853, at Ballydermot, King's Coun ...
the dead were given a burial
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
: further investigation, however, of the cemeteries shows that both burial and cremation
Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a Cadaver, dead body through Combustion, burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India ...
were practiced, with cremated remains placed in ossuaries
An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the ...
; practically no objects were found in the urn
An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape or ...
s. Cremation may have been a later introduction.
Development and collapse
For the early phases of the Middle Bronze Age it is plausible to think of the Terramare in terms of a polycentric settlement system, with apparently no substantial differences between one village and another. The density of dwellings rose, and in the MB2 (1550–1450 BC) is worthy of note. There are areas, coinciding with those that have been most extensively investigated, in which the inhabited settlements in this phase are no more than 2 kilometres one from the other. It can therefore be supposed that the entire territory was occupied by a tight-knit network of villages, a polycentric system with settlements generally covering between 1 and 2 hectares and occupied by up to 250/260 inhabitants (about 125 per hectare). At that point, the dimension of the settlements began to vary. Until the MB2, their size did not normally exceed two hectares, but during the MB3 (1450–1350 BC), there was a substantial increase in the surface area occupied by certain of these settlements, while others remained limited in size or disappeared altogether. This tendency was consolidated in the LBA. Several of these settlements cover an area of up to 20 hectares. The size of the embankments and ditches can reach remarkable proportions, some exceeding 30 metres in width. For the more advanced phase of the Middle Bronze Age, and above all during the Late Bronze Age (1350–1150 BC), we can hypothesise a greater degree of diversified territorial organisation, including centres which are larger and tending towards hegemony, adjacent to smaller sites. In certain areas during the LBA, we see a higher frequency of sites occupying a larger extension and a scant presence of small-size settlements, perhaps due to a marked tendency towards concentration of population. This trend seems to be accentuated during the advanced LBA, when the overall number of settlements decreases, with a tendency towards concentration in larger-size settlements and probable subordination of the smaller settlements to the larger ones.
Around 1200 BC a serious crisis began for the Terramare culture that within a few years led to the abandonment of all the settlements; the reasons for this crisis, roughly contemporaneous with the Late Bronze Age collapse
The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East ...
in the eastern Mediterranean, are still not entirely clear. It seems possible that in the face of an incipient overpopulation (between 150,000 and 200,000 individuals were calculated) and depletion of natural resources, a series of drought periods led to a deep economic crisis, famine, and consequently the disruption of the political order, which caused the collapse of society
Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of socioeconomic complexity, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible cause ...
. Around 1150 BC the Terramare were completely abandoned, with no settlements replacing them. The plains, especially in the area of Emilia, were abandoned for several centuries, and only in the Roman era they regain the density of population reached during the Terramare period.
It has been suggested that the memory of the fate of the Terramare culture may have lasted for centuries, until it was recorded by Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς,
; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary sty ...
, in his first book on the Roman Antiquities, as the fate of the Pelasgians
The name Pelasgians ( grc, Πελασγοί, ''Pelasgoí'', singular: Πελασγός, ''Pelasgós'') was used by classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergenc ...
. In his record the Pelasgians occupied the Po Valley up to two generations before the Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has ...
, but were forced, by a series of famines of which they could not understand the reason, nor to which find a solution, to leave their once-fertile land and move to the south, where they merged with the Aborigines.
Theories of ethnic identity
Significant differences of opinion have arisen as to the origin and ethnographic relations of the Terramare population.
Edoardo Brizio, in his ''Epoca preistorica'' (1898), advanced a theory that the Terramare population had been the original Ligurians
The Ligures (singular Ligur; Italian: liguri; English: Ligurians) were an ancient people after whom Liguria, a region of present-day north-western Italy, is named.
Ancient Liguria corresponded more or less to the current Italian regi ...
. Brizio believed that the Ligures, at some early point, took to erecting pile dwellings, although why they should have abandoned their previously unprotected hut-settlements for elaborate fortifications is unclear. While Brizio did not envision invading peoples until long after the Terramare period, the pile dwellings, ramparts and moats at Terramare sites have usually seemed more akin to military defenses, than the prevention of inundation during regular flooding; for instance, Terramare buildings usually stood on hills. There are other difficulties of a similar character with Brizio's theory.
Luigi Pigorini
Luigi Pigorini (10 January 1842 – 1 April 1925) was an Italian palaeoethnologist, archaeologist and ethnographer.
Biography
Pigorini was born at Fontanellato, near Parma.
At the age of sixteen years, in 1858, he became an alumnus of the Mu ...
(1842–1925) proposed that a population derived from the Terramare culture was a dominant component of the Proto-Villanovan culture
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).
History
Proto-V ...
—especially in its northern and Campanian phases and the Terramare culture has been an Indo-European-speaking population, the ancestors of the '' Italici'', i.e. the Italic-speaking peoples. Pigorini also attributed to the ''Italici'' a tradition of lake dwellings, modified in Italy into Terramare-style pile dwelling
Stilt houses (also called pile dwellings or lake dwellings) are houses raised on stilts (or piles) over the surface of the soil or a body of water. Stilt houses are built primarily as a protection against flooding; they also keep out vermin. The ...
on dry land.
More recently, Italian archeologist Andrea Cardarelli has proposed re-evaluations of contemporaneous Greek accounts, such as that of Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς,
; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary sty ...
, and to link the Terramare culture to the Pelasgians
The name Pelasgians ( grc, Πελασγοί, ''Pelasgoí'', singular: Πελασγός, ''Pelasgós'') was used by classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergenc ...
whom the Greeks generally equated with the Tyrrhenians
Tyrrhenians (Attic Greek: ''Turrhēnoi'') or Tyrsenians (Ionic Greek, Ionic: ''Tursēnoi''; Doric Greek, Doric: ''Tursānoi'') was the name used by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks authors to refer, in a generic sense, to pre-Greek, non-Gr ...
and specifically, therefore, the Etruscans
The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, rou ...
.
List of sites
*Santa Rosa di Poviglio, in Poviglio
Poviglio (Mantovano: ; Reggiano: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Reggio Emilia in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about northwest of Bologna and about northwest of Reggio Emilia.
Poviglio borders the following mun ...
- see Terramare of Santa Rosa
*Fondo Paviani, in Legnago
Legnago () is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Verona, Veneto, northern Italy, with population (2012) of 25,439. It is located on the Adige river, about from Verona. Its fertile land produces crops of rice, other cereals, sugar, and toba ...
- see Centro ambientale archeologico di Legnago
*Case del Lago
*Case Cocconi, in Parma
Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...
*Anzola dell'Emilia
Anzola dell'Emilia ( Western Bolognese: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Bologna in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about northwest of Bologna. It is an important area of industries and Habanero's crops near ...
[http://www.anzolaprimadellemilia.it]
Gallery
File:Parco archeologico e Museo all'aperto della Terramara di Montale.jpg, Reconstructed Terramare houses
File:Portone monumentale d'ingresso al Museo all'aperto della Terramara di Montale.jpg, Reconstructed entrance gate
File:Ciotola carenata, terramara di Sant’Ambrogio, 1450 – 1350 a.C., Museo Civico di Modena, foto di P. Terzi.jpg, Carinated bowl
File:Museo Civico Archeologico di Castelleone - St 68398 - pugnale.jpg, Bronze spearhead
File:Museo Civico Archeologico di Castelleone - Prop. Civica M.A.1 - scure.jpg, Bronze axe
File:Oggetti in corno di cervo dalla terramara di Montale, Museo Civico di Modena, foto P. Terzi.jpg, Carved bone artefacts
File:Oggetti in bronzo dalla terramara di Montale, Museo Civico di Modena.jpg, Bronze artefacts
See also
*Genetic history of Italy
The genetic history of Italy is greatly influenced by geography and history. The ancestors of Italians are mostly Indo-European languages, Indo-European speakers (Italic peoples such as Latins (Italic tribe), Latins, Falisci, Picentes, Umbri, Um ...
*Prehistoric Italy
The prehistory of Italy began in the Paleolithic period, when species of '' Homo'' colonized the Italian territory for the first time, and ended in the Iron Age, when the first written records appeared in Italy.
Paleolithic
In prehistoric t ...
*Villanovan culture
The Villanovan culture (c. 900–700 BC), regarded as the earliest phase of the Etruscan civilization, was the earliest Iron Age culture of Italy. It directly followed the Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture which branched off from the Urnfield ...
*Polada culture
The Fouladi (alternatively Polada, Poladha, Puladi); ( prs, پولادی) is a tribe of Hazara found in Afghanistan, of the Southern branch of Hazara. Per several references, the Poladha are among the eight overarching Hazara tribes.
One study i ...
*Ancient peoples of Italy
This list of ancient peoples living in Italy summarises groupings existing before and during the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy. Many of the names are either scholarly inventions or exonyms assigned by the ancient writers of works in anc ...
*Dark earth
Dark earth in geology is a substratum, up to 1 meter (3.1 feet) thick, that indicates settlement over long periods of time. The material is high in organic matter, including charcoal, which gives it its characteristic dark colour; it may also co ...
References
Sources
*
*
Further reading
* See specifically pp. 721–726.
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Archaeological cultures of Southern Europe
Chalcolithic cultures of Europe
Bronze Age cultures of Europe
Archaeological cultures in Italy
Prehistoric Italy
Italic archaeological cultures
Pelasgians