Villanovan culture

The Villanovan is the oldest Iron Age culture in Northern Italy. It spread around the 10th century BC in the central Italy, especially in the northern Apennines, and disappeared in the 5th century BC Its center they had in Tuscany today. It was replaced by the culture of the Etruscans, the basis of which it formed.

It was named after the village or estate Villanova 10 km in the municipality Castenaso southeast of Bologna. There, a burial ground of the Villanova culture was discovered in 1853 by Count Giovanni Gozzadini was first excavate scientifically oriented. Typical are ornate urns that were covered often with bronze or Tonhelmen in men's graves, as well as so-called house urns, which are designed as a house, and other grave goods ( pottery, weapons, jewelry ).

The main sources are the major urnfields. The combustion with urn burial was then widely spread throughout Europe.

The early Villanovan culture was probably more egalitarian. Later, there are increasingly more powerful features in a hierarchy of settlement patterns and arrangement of the graves.

The period of transition from the Villanovan culture to the Etruscans is called Orientalizzante / orientalisierend (late 8th to early 6th century BC), because at that time increasingly oriental influences were effective. Especially in the Scriptures and the coinage was the effect of this influence.