Latial culture

Cinerary urn

The Latial culture ranged approximately over ancient Old Latium. The Iron Age Latial culture coincides with the arrival in the region of a people who spoke Old Latin. The culture is likely therefore to identify a phase of the socio-political self-consciousness of the Latin tribe, during the period of the kings of Alba Longa and the foundation of the Roman Kingdom.

The Latial is diagnosed by the hut-urn. Where cremation urns of the Villanovan culture are plain, biconical, and were buried in a deep shaft, the hut-urn is a round or square model of a hut with a peaked roof and a door leading to the interior of one side. Cremation was not an exclusive rite; it shared the funerary conventions with inhumation, with decreasing frequency as the period progressed; however, the artifact assemblage with which it is associated is distinctive. The hut-urns correspond to the huts in which the population for the most part lived, although during the period they developed the use of stone for temples and other public buildings.^[1][2]

The Apennine culture of Latium transitioned smoothly into the Latial with no evidence of an intrusive population movement. The population generally abandoned sites of purely economic advantage in favor of defensible sites, the locations of future cities, about which they clustered; hence the term pre-urban. This population movement may indicate an increase in marauding.^[3]

Periodization

The periodization is standard and varies little; however, a tolerance of ±25 years is implied:^[2][4][5]

Period	Date BC	Phase
Latial or LC (Latial Culture) I	1000-900	Pre-urban
LCIIA	900-830	Pre-urban
LCIIB	830-770	Proto-urban
LCIII	770-730	Proto-urban
LCIVA	730-630	Proto-urban
LCIVB	630-580	Archaic urban

Sites

Latial I^[6] is concentrated in the Rome region, the Alban Hills and the Monti della Tolfa. Evidence is mainly funerary from necropoleis (cemeteries). Cremation was the predominant rite.^[7] Cremation burials consist of a hut-urn with ashes of the deceased placed in a dolium (large jar) with some other vessels used for food offerings. Pottery is undecorated. Instead of a hut-urn a vase with a cone-like roof or simulated helmet may be used. The dolium was placed in a stone-lined pozzo (hole) and commemorated above-ground.

For grave goods, spindle-whorls identify females and miniature armor and weapons, males. Statuettes, some with hands outstretched, may be present.

Notes

1. Cornell (1995), pp 48-51.
2. Gordon (2007), p. 46.
3. Smith (1996), p. 34.
4. Smith (1996), p. xii.
5. Cornell (1995), p. 50.
6. Smith (1996), pp. 37-43.
7. Forsythe (2005), p. 54.

References

• Cornell, Timothy J (1995). "The Origin of Rome: Archaeology in Rome and Old Latium: the Nature of the Evidence". The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC). The Routledge History of the Ancient World. Routledge. pp. 48–80. ISBN 978-0-415-01596-7.
• Forsythe, Gary (2005). "Archaic Italy c. 800-500 BC". A critical history of early Rome : from prehistory to the first Punic War. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 28–58.
• Rüpke, Jörg; Gordon, Richard (Translator) (2007). "Historical Foundations". Religion of the Romans. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. pp. 39–64. ISBN 978-0-7456-3014-4.
• Smith, Christopher John (1996). Early Rome and Latium: Economy and Society c. 1000 to 500 BC. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-815031-2.

External links

• "Room 1: Hut-shaped urn". Vatican Museums Online: Gregorian Etruscan Museum. 2003–2007. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
• Nijboer, A.J.; Van Der Plicht, J.; Bietti Sestieri, A.M.; De Santis, A. (1999–2000). "A high chronology for the Early Iron Age in central Italy". Palaeohistoria (Adapted ed.). University of Groningen: Laboratory for Conservation & Material Studies (41/42): 163–176. Retrieved 28 July 2009.