We find among their remains, besides rude objects in bronze and other substances, pottery of the very simplest kinds, hand-made and roughly baked. This is not found in tombs, but mingled with the débris of the dwellings. The shapes comprise cups and pots, and there are few attempts at decoration beyond rows of knobs or bosses. A crescent-shaped or lunulated handle is attached to many of the vases, serving as a support for the thumb; but this is a feature also found in other parts of Italy and in Sicily. Iron, glass, and silver are quite unknown, and gold only represented by a doubtful specimen; on the other hand, along with the finds of bronze, which include weapons, tools, and objects of toilet, are survivals of the Neolithic Age in the shape of axes, spear-heads, and tools of stone. In several of the settlements actual moulds for bronze-casting were found.

The Neolithic remains are sufficient to indicate the early date of this civilisation, and it is probably contemporary in point of development (if not of date) with the earliest remains from Hissarlik and Cyprus. It may thus be traced back as far as 1500 B.C. at least, and seems to extend down to about the end of the tenth century B.C. The analogous pottery found at Thapsus in Sicily is mixed with Mycenaean vases, and may therefore be more precisely dated; but it is altogether more advanced than that of the Terramare. The influence of the latter no doubt spread gradually downwards during these thousand years through Central and Southern Italy.[[2254]]

(2) THE VILLANUOVA PERIOD (TOMBS A POZZO)

The next stage in the development of civilisation in Italy, probably separated from the preceding by a period of transition, is what is known as the Villanuova period, from a site of that name at Bologna. It begins with the ninth century B.C., and lasts for some two hundred years; its traces are much more widely spread than those of the Terramare people, being found not only to the north of the Apennines, but all over Etruria. It is interesting to note that the chief finds have been made in what afterwards became the principal centres of Etruscan civilisation, such as Bologna, Corneto, Vetulonia, etc. In almost every respect it shows a marked development on the preceding stage. Iron is already known, and the working of bronze better understood, the processes of hammering plates (σφυρήλατον) and working in repoussé being introduced to supplement that of casting.[[2255]]

We now for the first time meet with tombs, the characteristic form of which is that of a well or pit, ending in a small circular chamber, in which the remains are deposited. Italian archaeologists have given to these tombs the name of a pozzo. The method of burial practised was almost exclusively that of incineration, but it appears certain that the inhabitants of Etruria never showed a special preference either for one method or the other, and the alternative method of inhumation already appears at Corneto before the next stage is reached with the eighth century.

It has been sometimes objected that the introduction of inhumation must connote the first arrival of the Etruscan people in these regions, on the ground that they did not practise incineration; but this idea rests on no sound basis. The introduction of the new system, which never entirely ousted incineration, can easily be explained as due to external influences; not indeed to the Phoenicians (although it was a universal Oriental custom), for their influence in Italy has been much exaggerated; but rather to the Greeks, who colonised Cumae in the middle of the eighth century, from which time onwards Hellenic influence gradually becomes more and more apparent.

We have seen, then, that the Villanuova civilisation may be fairly regarded as Etruscan. It was not, however, by any means confined to Etruria, for it is spread all over the country to the north of the Apennines, and two of its most important centres were at Bologna and Este. The whole of this region shows traces of having been for a long time under the early Etruscan domination. It is, in fact, in close dependence on the Terramare civilisation which here preceded it, the difference, as we have indicated, being brought about by commerce and foreign influences.

From Ann. dell’ Inst.
FIG. 178. TOMB A POZZO
WITH CINERARY URN.

The pozzo tombs usually contain a large cinerary urn or ossuarium, in which the ashes were placed after being burnt (Fig. [178]).[[2256]] These urns are fashioned by hand from a badly levigated volcanic clay, generally known as impasto Italico. It is to be distinguished from the later bucchero nero (see p. [301]) by its quality, and by the fact that vases of the latter clay are always wheel-made. The clay is irregularly baked over an open fire, and the colour of the surface varies from red-brown to greyish black. It is covered with a polished slip, and there is no doubt that it was the intention of the potter to give the vases a metallic appearance as well as form.