This work begins with a brief history of studies concerning the Apennine Culture. The review of the archaeological evidence begins with the sites where it has been possible to establish stratigraphical sequences: these facilitate not...
moreThis work begins with a brief history of studies concerning the Apennine Culture.
The review of the archaeological evidence begins with the sites where it has been possible to establish stratigraphical sequences: these facilitate not only the study of individual finds but also (and more particularly) the analysis of the associations and so of the chronological succession of the types involved. Then, a study of all the places in Lazio that have yielded Apennine or Subapennine material provides a picture of the diffusion of the types and of their differential concentrations in particular territories.
The catalogue contains mainly unpublished material of the Middle and Recent Bronze age, illustrated in figs.; it offers a virtually total panorama of the objects of Apennine or Subapennine type found on sites in Lazio.
The study of all the ceramic forms present in the territory examined has yielded a clear picture of the typological range proper to the different phases of the Apennine Culture; analysis of the types, and of the places where they occur, enables us in addition to recognize the distribution of the different types in both space and time.
The diagram which shows the frequency and the associations of the types on the various sites leads to an analysis of the Apennine and Subapennine objects in Lazio, and to a comparison of them with similar finds in other part of Italy. Naturally, such comparisons are particularly useful when they involve contexts that enable us to propose relative and absolute chronologies (tomb-groups; associations in layers with easily datable imports; significant stratigraphical sequences; non-Apennine cultural contexts).
The Apennine Culture in Lazio develops in three clearly defined periods: the first two - called Phase 1 A and Phase 1 B - are assigned to the Middle Bronze Age, and the last - called Phase 2 - to the Recent Bronze Age.
Phase 1 A - The most characteristic forms include vertical strap handles; vertical channelled or strap “elbow” handles (or with axe-shaped appendage); handles and grips with enlarged, flattened apex; decorative motifs consisting of net-pattern, spaced-out dots, small impressed circles; and lines of dotted or dashed incisions, and excised triangles, are already present. Various types of vase – bowls, cups, jars and saucers – are exclusive to this Phase 1 A, which may be defined as “Appenninico Antico” and assigned to a period between the beginning of the 16th and roughly the last quarter of the 15th century BC on the basis of associations with Mycenean I, II, III A 1 and with Capo Graziano pottery.
Phase 1 B (“Appenninico Recente”) - it may be assigned to a period between the last quarter of the 15th/beginning of the 14th centuries and the end of the 14th/ beginning of the 13th centuries on the basis of associations with Mycenean III A and III B pottery. In contrast with the shapes generally in use in Phase 1 A, those of Phase 1 B seem to favour open and comparatively low shapes such as the broad shallow carinated bowls; narrow-mouthed jars appear now, as do high saucers with inverted rims, situlas and sub-cylindrical situliform jars. The vertical strap handles now have the apex in relief, or one or two outer grips, or the highest part enlarged and curving. In general terms, decoration is now less finely executed and larger motifs are more common; incised strip of one or two lines of dots are very numerous, as are double rows of triangular excisions, las-cord ornament (for the first time), incisions running parallel with a line of dots, large cut-out motifs and rows of transverse dashes.
With the Recent Bronze Age, an almost complete change is apparent in the typological range proper to the Apennine Culture: the clearest stylistic change is the total absence of decorative motifs on the pottery. Handles, too, are essentially different-ending in a variety of horned protuberances; the most typical shapes still includes the carinated bowls. Some pottery items are early versions of forms destined to become extremely common in the Final Bronze Age: animal figurines, weights, loom-weights, spindle-whorls, some type of binocular handle, bell-shaped lids, footed cups, bases with oblique grips. Lazio Phase 2 may be assigned to a period between the beginning/first half of the 13th century and the end of the same century/beginning of the 12th (the imported Mycenean vases are by now III B end C 1)
The sites that are most representative of Appenninico Antico in Lazio seem to have grown up by preference on the coast, or not far away, in the northern part of the area: during Appenninico Recente, most such sites appear to have been abandoned, and numerous sites grow up in the interior. The period which sees the rise of Phase 1 B sites in Lazio also witnesses both the construction of Milazzo Culture villages on naturally defended sites in the interior of the Aeolian Islands and the abandonment of the coastal sites of Porto Perone in Apulia.
In the Recent Bronze Age life continues in the villages that emerged in the preceding phase, and the Tiber valley, the Ager Veientanus, the hinterland of the south coast and perhaps the Monti Cornicolani and the Frusinate are all populated. In the Aeolian Islands, the rise of the culture called Ausonian I, with characteristics similar to those of Subapennine, leads to the total abandonment of the older centres; in Apulia, proper defensive walls are erected around the settlements.
All the sites are placed near one or more permanent water-course. For the earliest period, there is unfortunately no evidence for built structures; it is only with the Appeninico Recente and rater with the Subappenninic that we have a clear picture both of the structures and of the techniques involved (“houses” on the acropolis of Luni sul Mignone, huts at Tre Erici, “building” and huts at Narce.
Ther is evidence for the use of caves, mostly for ritual and/or funerary purposes, in the second period of the Middle Bronze Age and in the Recent Bronze Age, from the Ager Faliscus, the Appennino Carseolano and the Fiora valley.
We still know very little about the funerary customs in use during the Middle and Recent Bronze Age in Lazio. Pian Sultano is an example of a monumental cemetery with megalithic tombs: the corridor-chambers are made out of travertine slabs and surrounded by a pile of stones covered with earth. Comparisons can be made with the funerary rites attested in other Apennine Culture areas in Midle (inhumation for example at Torre S.Sabina, Trinitapoli and Manaccora; cremation in the “Urnfield” at Canosa) and in the Recent Bronze Age (cremation at Canosa and on Lipari; probably inhumation in the Marches, in the Abruzzi and in Emila): it seems reasonable to suppose that the inhumation rite (collective in caves; single in megalithic monuments-dolmens and chamber tombs) was practiced during the first period of the Apennine Culture, and that from some point in the Middle Bronze Age the cremation rite began to spread and was received with varying degrees of alacrity in some of the Apennine Culture areas.
Various economic components of the earlier horizon of the Apennine Culture in Lazio suggest a mixed economy in which, however, pastoralism prevailed. By the later phase of the Middle Bronze Age the picture is more complex: stock-raising seems to have been very important, with agricultural practiced more intensely – this is indicated not only by the evidence for the raising of pigs and for the existence of stable settlements but also and above all by the presence of querns, large storage vessels and the palaeobotanical remains. It may be supposed that the same type of mixed economy continued in the Recent Bronze Age.
