Ancient Italic peoples
Encyclopedia
Ancient people of Italy are all those people that lived in Italy
(including the islands of Sicily
and Sardinia
) before the Roman domination
.
Not all of these various people are linguistically or ethnically closely related. Some of them spoke Italic languages
, others spoke Greek
because of the arrival of Hellenic
colonists, while others belonged to another Indo-European branch or were non-Indo-European. The classification of a few of these ethnicons is unknown or disputed.
In the absence of any knowledge of ethnicity in Italy before writing, the date of the invention of writing there, the 7th century BC, must serve as the only certain terminus post quem
for known ethnicons
. They must be defined primarily on language. Other critera: shared descent, customs, religion, etc., remain unevidenced by any historical document. Mention of cultural heritage in mythology is uncertain and equivocal at best. It can only be used to support or contradict facts already known by the methods of history.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Prussian archaeologist, Gustaf Kossinna
, formulated his concept of a "settlement archaeology," which asserted that an ethnic group is to be identified with an archaeological horizon. The concept appeared to give historians the ability to identify ancient ethnic groups just by looking at the archaeology; for example, the La Tène Culture
was considered to be a diagnostic of the Celts. It would be difficult to find a concept more influential on the study of prehistory, and yet "Kossinna's Law", as it came to be called, began to be abandoned during the explosion of archaeology following World War II.
In Italy specifically the scholar who initiated the end of Kossinna's Law was Massimo Pallottino
. He noticed that the archaeological cultures of Italy around the time of the invention of writing did not on the whole correspond to the documented ethnicons. He argued that terms such as "the Terramare culture
" or "the Apennine culture
" have no ethnic or linguistic significance. And yet he himself used these distinctions partially in some cases in attempting to trace the entry of Italics or their ancestors into Italy. Like the mythology, archaeology can only be used in a limited way to support or contradict the historical evidence.
). There are some 20 such sites, the most important being that of the Grotta Guattari at San Felice Circeo
, on the Tyrrhenian Sea
south to Rome. Other are the grotta di Fumane (province of Verona
), grotta San Bernardino ( province of Vicenza
) and the Breuil grotto, also in San Felice.
Modern humans appeared during the upper Palaeolithic. Remains of the Aurignacian
variety have been found in the grotto of Fumane, dating to c. 34,000 years ago.
Remains of the later prehistoric age have been found in Liguria
, Lombardy
(stone carvings in Valcamonica) and in Sardinia (nuraghe
). The most famous is perhaps that of Ötzi the Iceman
, the mummy
of a mountain hunter found in the Similaun
glacier in South Tyrol, dating to c. 3000 BC (Copper Age
).
During Copper Age
, at the same time of the appearance of metalwork, Indo-European people migrated to Italy. Approximatively four waves of population from north to the Alps have been identified:
1. Around the mid-3rd millennium BC, from populations who imported copper smithing. The Remedello culture
(ca. 3400 - 2800 BC) took over the Po Valley
.
(ca. 2400 – 1800 BC) and by the use of bronze smithing, in the Padan Plain, in Tuscany
and on the coasts of Sardinia
and Sicily
.
3. In the mid-2nd millennium BC, associated with the Terramare culture
(ca. 1700-1150 BC.). The Terramare culture takes its name from the black earth (terremare) residue of settlement mounds, which have long served the fertilizing needs of local farmers. The occupations of the terramare people as compared with their Neolithic predecessors may be inferred with comparative certainty. They were still hunters, but had domesticated animals; they were fairly skillful metallurgists, casting bronze in moulds of stone and clay, and they were also agriculturists, cultivating beans, the vine
, wheat
and flax
. The later Latino-faliscan
people have been associated with this culture.
(ca. 1100 - 700 BC), related to the Central European Urnfield culture
, brought iron-working to the Italian peninsula. Villanovans practiced cremation
and buried the ashes of their dead in pottery urns of distinctive double-cone shape. Generally speaking, Villanovan settlements were centered in the Po River valley and Etruria around Bologna
, later an important Etruscan center, and areas in Emilia Romagna (at Verruchio and Fermi), in Tuscany
and Lazio. Further south, in Campania
, a region where inhumation was the general practice, Villanovan cremation burials have been identified at Capua, at the "princely tombs" of Pontecagnano near Salerno (finds conserved in the Museum of Agro Picentino) and at Sala Consilina.
The later Osco-Umbrian
, Veneti
and Lepontii
people (and possibly the Latino-Faliscans too) have been associated with this culture as also the non-Indo-European Etruscans developed after about 800 BC approximately over the range of the preceding Villanovan culture.
In the 13th century BC proto-Celts entered in Northern Italy
starting the Canegrate culture
whom not long time after, merging with the indigenous, and originally Pre-Indo-European
, Ligurians, produced the mixed Golasecca culture
.
is accepted). It is therefore the set of all Indo-Europeans present exclusively in Italy in antiquity, and excludes Indo-European people that were present also in other areas of Europe, such as the Cisalpine Gaul
Celtic family or the Messapians (related to the Illyrians
).
, including therefore (definitely or supposedly) not Indo-European lineages as the Etruscans, Ligurians or Raetians. The ancient Greeks designated this kind of people, at least limitedly to the areas of Magna Graecia
where they were in contact with them, with the term "Italiotes
" also resumed later with a different meaning.
(1866–1936).
However, this unitarian pattern was radically critiqued starting with the work of Alois Walde
(1869–1924). Arguments by Vittore Pisani (1899–1990) and Giacomo Devoto (1897–1974) identified two distinct branches of Indo-European Italic languages and people who spoke them. This idea was variously reformulated in the years after World War II
, and finally imposed, although the specific traits of similarities and differences among the branches, and the process of formation and penetration in Italy, are still researched by the historical linguistics.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
(including the islands of Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
and Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
) before the Roman domination
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
.
Not all of these various people are linguistically or ethnically closely related. Some of them spoke Italic languages
Italic languages
The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin , and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, and Latin.In the past various definitions of "Italic" have prevailed...
, others spoke Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
because of the arrival of Hellenic
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
colonists, while others belonged to another Indo-European branch or were non-Indo-European. The classification of a few of these ethnicons is unknown or disputed.
In the absence of any knowledge of ethnicity in Italy before writing, the date of the invention of writing there, the 7th century BC, must serve as the only certain terminus post quem
Terminus post quem
Terminus post quem and terminus ante quem specify approximate dates for events...
for known ethnicons
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
. They must be defined primarily on language. Other critera: shared descent, customs, religion, etc., remain unevidenced by any historical document. Mention of cultural heritage in mythology is uncertain and equivocal at best. It can only be used to support or contradict facts already known by the methods of history.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Prussian archaeologist, Gustaf Kossinna
Gustaf Kossinna
Gustaf Kossinna was a linguist and professor of German archaeology at the University of Berlin...
, formulated his concept of a "settlement archaeology," which asserted that an ethnic group is to be identified with an archaeological horizon. The concept appeared to give historians the ability to identify ancient ethnic groups just by looking at the archaeology; for example, the La Tène Culture
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....
was considered to be a diagnostic of the Celts. It would be difficult to find a concept more influential on the study of prehistory, and yet "Kossinna's Law", as it came to be called, began to be abandoned during the explosion of archaeology following World War II.
In Italy specifically the scholar who initiated the end of Kossinna's Law was Massimo Pallottino
Massimo Pallottino
Massimo Pallottino was an Italian archaeologist specializing in Etruscan civilization and art....
. He noticed that the archaeological cultures of Italy around the time of the invention of writing did not on the whole correspond to the documented ethnicons. He argued that terms such as "the Terramare culture
Terramare culture
Terramare, Terramara or Terremare is a technology complex mainly of the central Po valley, in Emilia, northern Italy, dating to the Middle and Late Bronze Age ca. 1700-1150 BC. It takes its name from the "black earth" residue of settlement mounds. Terramare is from terra marna, "marl-earth", where...
" or "the Apennine culture
Apennine culture
The Apennine culture or Italian Bronze Age is a technology complex of central and southern Italy spanning the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age proper. It is preceded by the Neolithic and succeeded by the Iron Age Villanovan culture. Apennine culture pottery is a black, burnished ware incised and...
" have no ethnic or linguistic significance. And yet he himself used these distinctions partially in some cases in attempting to trace the entry of Italics or their ancestors into Italy. Like the mythology, archaeology can only be used in a limited way to support or contradict the historical evidence.
Palaeolithic
The presence of the Homo neanderthalensis has been demonstrated in archaeological findings dating to c. 50,000 years ago (late PleistocenePleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
). There are some 20 such sites, the most important being that of the Grotta Guattari at San Felice Circeo
San Felice Circeo
San Felice Circeo is a town and comune in the province of Latina, in the Lazio region of central Italy.It is included in that Circeo National Park...
, on the Tyrrhenian Sea
Tyrrhenian Sea
The Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy.-Geography:The sea is bounded by Corsica and Sardinia , Tuscany, Lazio, Campania, Basilicata and Calabria and Sicily ....
south to Rome. Other are the grotta di Fumane (province of Verona
Province of Verona
The Province of Verona is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Verona.-Overview:The province has an area of 3,109 km², and a total population of 912,981...
), grotta San Bernardino ( province of Vicenza
Province of Vicenza
The Province of Vicenza is a province in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Its capital city is Vicenza.The province has an area of 2,723 km², and a total population of 840,000 . There are 121 comuni in the province...
) and the Breuil grotto, also in San Felice.
Modern humans appeared during the upper Palaeolithic. Remains of the Aurignacian
Aurignacian
The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Palaeolithic, located in Europe and southwest Asia. It lasted broadly within the period from ca. 45,000 to 35,000 years ago in terms of conventional radiocarbon dating, or between ca. 47,000 and 41,000 years ago in terms of the most...
variety have been found in the grotto of Fumane, dating to c. 34,000 years ago.
Mesolithic
The first inhabitants of Italy, perhaps coming from a migration started from Apulia around 37,000 years ago, moved across the peninusula, establishing themselves in small settlements far from each one, most on high areas. Around 12,000, the diminishing number of big game forced their descendants to populate the coast areas.Chalcolithic
Liguria
Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...
, Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
(stone carvings in Valcamonica) and in Sardinia (nuraghe
Nuraghe
The nuraghe is the main type of ancient megalithic edifice found in Sardinia. Today it has come to be the symbol of Sardinia and its distinctive culture, the Nuragic civilization...
). The most famous is perhaps that of Ötzi the Iceman
Ötzi the Iceman
Ötzi the Iceman , Similaun Man, and Man from Hauslabjoch are modern names for a well-preserved natural mummy of a man who lived about 5,300 years ago. The mummy was found in September 1991 in the Ötztal Alps, near Hauslabjoch on the border between Austria and Italy. The nickname comes from the...
, the mummy
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
of a mountain hunter found in the Similaun
Similaun
Similaun is a mountain in the Schnalskamm group of the Ötztal Alps/Venoste Alps. It is on the Austrian-Italian border. At 3,606 m high, it is Austria's sixth highest summit. It was first ascended in 1834 by Josef Raffeiner and Theodor Kaserer. It is most famous for being the mountain on whose...
glacier in South Tyrol, dating to c. 3000 BC (Copper Age
Copper Age
The Chalcolithic |stone]]") period or Copper Age, also known as the Eneolithic/Æneolithic , is a phase of the Bronze Age in which the addition of tin to copper to form bronze during smelting remained yet unknown by the metallurgists of the times...
).
During Copper Age
Copper Age
The Chalcolithic |stone]]") period or Copper Age, also known as the Eneolithic/Æneolithic , is a phase of the Bronze Age in which the addition of tin to copper to form bronze during smelting remained yet unknown by the metallurgists of the times...
, at the same time of the appearance of metalwork, Indo-European people migrated to Italy. Approximatively four waves of population from north to the Alps have been identified:
1. Around the mid-3rd millennium BC, from populations who imported copper smithing. The Remedello culture
Remedello culture
The Remedello culture developed during the Copper Age in Northern Italy, particularly in the area of the Po valley...
(ca. 3400 - 2800 BC) took over the Po Valley
Po Valley
The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain is a major geographical feature of Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of 46,000 km² including its Venetic extension not actually related to the Po River basin; it runs from the Western Alps to the...
.
Bronze age
2. From late-3rd to early-2nd millennium BC, with tribes identified with the Beaker cultureBeaker culture
The Bell-Beaker culture , ca. 2400 – 1800 BC, is the term for a widely scattered cultural phenomenon of prehistoric western Europe starting in the late Neolithic or Chalcolithic running into the early Bronze Age...
(ca. 2400 – 1800 BC) and by the use of bronze smithing, in the Padan Plain, in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
and on the coasts of Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
and Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
.
3. In the mid-2nd millennium BC, associated with the Terramare culture
Terramare culture
Terramare, Terramara or Terremare is a technology complex mainly of the central Po valley, in Emilia, northern Italy, dating to the Middle and Late Bronze Age ca. 1700-1150 BC. It takes its name from the "black earth" residue of settlement mounds. Terramare is from terra marna, "marl-earth", where...
(ca. 1700-1150 BC.). The Terramare culture takes its name from the black earth (terremare) residue of settlement mounds, which have long served the fertilizing needs of local farmers. The occupations of the terramare people as compared with their Neolithic predecessors may be inferred with comparative certainty. They were still hunters, but had domesticated animals; they were fairly skillful metallurgists, casting bronze in moulds of stone and clay, and they were also agriculturists, cultivating beans, the vine
Vine
A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...
, wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
and flax
Flax
Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...
. The later Latino-faliscan
Latino-Faliscan languages
The Latino-Faliscan languages are a group of languages that belong to the Italic language family of the Indo-European languages. They were spoken in Italy. Latin and Faliscan belong to this group....
people have been associated with this culture.
Iron age
4. From the late 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium BC, the Iron Age Villanovan cultureVillanovan culture
The Villanovan culture was the earliest Iron Age culture of central and northern Italy, abruptly following the Bronze Age Terramare culture and giving way in the 7th century BC to an increasingly orientalizing culture influenced by Greek traders, which was followed without a severe break by the...
(ca. 1100 - 700 BC), related to the Central European Urnfield culture
Urnfield culture
The Urnfield culture was a late Bronze Age culture of central Europe. The name comes from the custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns which were then buried in fields...
, brought iron-working to the Italian peninsula. Villanovans practiced cremation
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
and buried the ashes of their dead in pottery urns of distinctive double-cone shape. Generally speaking, Villanovan settlements were centered in the Po River valley and Etruria around Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, later an important Etruscan center, and areas in Emilia Romagna (at Verruchio and Fermi), in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
and Lazio. Further south, in Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, a region where inhumation was the general practice, Villanovan cremation burials have been identified at Capua, at the "princely tombs" of Pontecagnano near Salerno (finds conserved in the Museum of Agro Picentino) and at Sala Consilina.
Osco-Umbrian languages
The Osco-Umbrian languages or Sabellic languages are a group of languages that belong to the Italic language family of the Indo-European languages. They were spoken in central and southern Italy before Latin replaced them as the power of the Romans expanded...
, Veneti
Veneti
Veneti may refer to:*Veneti , an ancient Celtic tribe described by classical sources as living in what is now Brittany, France*Adriatic Veneti, an ancient historical people of northeastern Italy, who spoke an Indo-European language related to the Italic languages*Vistula Veneti, an ancient...
and Lepontii
Lepontii
The Lepontii were an ancient people occupying portions of Rhaetia in the Alps during the time of the Roman conquest of that territory. The Lepontii have been variously described as a Celtic, Ligurian, Raetian, and Germanic tribe...
people (and possibly the Latino-Faliscans too) have been associated with this culture as also the non-Indo-European Etruscans developed after about 800 BC approximately over the range of the preceding Villanovan culture.
In the 13th century BC proto-Celts entered in Northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
starting the Canegrate culture
Canegrate culture
The Canegrate culture was a civilization of Prehistoric Italy whom developed from the recent Bronze Age until the Iron Age, in the Pianura Padana of what are now western Lombardy, eastern Piedmont and Canton Ticino....
whom not long time after, merging with the indigenous, and originally Pre-Indo-European
Pre-Indo-European
Old Europe is a term coined by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceives as a relatively homogeneous and widespread pre-Indo-European Neolithic culture in Europe, particularly in Malta and the Balkans....
, Ligurians, produced the mixed Golasecca culture
Golasecca culture
The Golasecca culture was a Celtic culture in northern Italy , whose type-site has been excavated at Golasecca in the province of Varese, Lombardy.-Archeological sources:...
.
Italic people
The term Italic people is used in various meanings, indicating one or more groups of people in Ancient Italy. In the strict and narrow meaning, the term refers to all the people who spoke Osco-Umbrian Indo-European languages and had settled along the Apennines, from Umbria to Calabria.Italics as Osco-Umbrians
Within the narrower meaning, "Italics" are regarded, especially by linguists, as those belonging to the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellian people, characterized by the use of Osco-Umbrian languages, an Indo-European language family attested in the Italian peninsula between the 2nd millennium BC and the first centuries of the 1st millennium A.D. This is the general term used in specialized historiography.Italics as Osco-Umbrians and Latino-Faliscis
In a larger sense, "Italic" means the set of two ancient similar Indo-European groups: next to Osco-Umbrian, this set also includes Latino-Faliscis (or "Latino-Venetis" if also the membership of the ancient VenetiVeneti
Veneti may refer to:*Veneti , an ancient Celtic tribe described by classical sources as living in what is now Brittany, France*Adriatic Veneti, an ancient historical people of northeastern Italy, who spoke an Indo-European language related to the Italic languages*Vistula Veneti, an ancient...
is accepted). It is therefore the set of all Indo-Europeans present exclusively in Italy in antiquity, and excludes Indo-European people that were present also in other areas of Europe, such as the Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul, in Latin: Gallia Cisalpina or Citerior, also called Gallia Togata, was a Roman province until 41 BC when it was merged into Roman Italy.It bore the name Gallia, because the great body of its inhabitants, after the expulsion of the Etruscans, consisted of Gauls or Celts...
Celtic family or the Messapians (related to the Illyrians
Illyrians
The Illyrians were a group of tribes who inhabited part of the western Balkans in antiquity and the south-eastern coasts of the Italian peninsula...
).
Italics as people of Ancient Italy
In improper sense, the term "Italics" is sometimes used, especially in the non-specialized literature, to refer to all pre-Roman people of ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, including therefore (definitely or supposedly) not Indo-European lineages as the Etruscans, Ligurians or Raetians. The ancient Greeks designated this kind of people, at least limitedly to the areas of Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...
where they were in contact with them, with the term "Italiotes
Italiotes
The Italiotes were the pre-Roman Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Italian Peninsula, between Naples and Sicily.Greek colonization of the coastal areas of southern Italy and Sicily started in the 8th century BC and, by the time of Roman ascendance, the area was so extensively hellenized that...
" also resumed later with a different meaning.
Evolution of the concept of "Italia"
Initially, the Indo-Europeanist scholars were inclined to postulate for the various people speaking Indo-European Italic languages, namely those belonging to Indo-European language families attested exclusively in Italy in antiquity, a separate unitarian branch of the Indo-European languages, parallel for example to the Celtic or Germanic ones, and this was identified under the common label of "Italic". The founder of this hypothesis is considered Antoine MeilletAntoine Meillet
Paul Jules Antoine Meillet was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. Meillet began his studies at the Sorbonne, where he was influenced by Michel Bréal, Ferdinand de Saussure, and the members of the Année Sociologique. In 1890 he was part of a research trip to the...
(1866–1936).
However, this unitarian pattern was radically critiqued starting with the work of Alois Walde
Alois Walde
Alois Walde was a German linguist.He taught as professor at Innsbruck University, Königsberg University, Breslau University.-Literary works:* Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1906...
(1869–1924). Arguments by Vittore Pisani (1899–1990) and Giacomo Devoto (1897–1974) identified two distinct branches of Indo-European Italic languages and people who spoke them. This idea was variously reformulated in the years after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and finally imposed, although the specific traits of similarities and differences among the branches, and the process of formation and penetration in Italy, are still researched by the historical linguistics.
See also
- Genetic history of ItalyGenetic history of ItalyDuring prehistory Italy was populated by different but very similar Indo-European groups, later collectively listed amongst the Ancient peoples of Italy, of whom the Italic one was predominant....
- History of ItalyHistory of ItalyItaly, united in 1861, has significantly contributed to the political, cultural and social development of the entire Mediterranean region. Many cultures and civilizations have existed there since prehistoric times....
- Nuragic civilizationNuragic civilizationThe Nuragic civilization was a civilization of Sardinia, lasting from the Bronze Age to the 2nd century AD. The name derives from its most characteristic monuments, the nuraghe. They consist of tower-fortresses, built starting from about 1800 BC...
, about SardiniaSardiniaSardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],... - Prehistoric ItalyPrehistoric Italythumb|A Sardinian bronze statuette, perhaps portraying a tribal chief. [[Cagliari]], Museo Archeologico Nazionale.The territory of what is now Italy was settled by Neanderthal man in the Lower Palaeolithic, roughly 500,000 years ago. As elsewhere in Europe, the Neanterthals co-existed with Homo...
- List of ancient peoples of Italy