Villanovan

The Villanovan culture is an archaeologically defined Iron Age culture of the Italian peninsula, dating roughly from the 9th to the 7th century BCE in central Italy, with core areas in what are now Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, and parts of Umbria. It is named after the site of Villanova di Castenaso near Bologna and is regarded as the earliest phase in the ethnogenesis of the Etruscan civilization.

A principal source of information about Villanovan society comes from its funerary record. Cremation was the standard rite, with the ashes interred in ceramic urns or associated vessels, often within tombs or urnfields beneathmounds. Grave goods typically included bronze vessels and fibulae, mirrors, iron implements, and various ornaments, along with pottery. Villanovan pottery itself features wheel-made shapes with incised, impressed, or cord-marked decoration, and it laid the groundwork for later Etruscan ceramic styles.

Settlement patterns indicate small, agrarian communities with domestic structures and storage features, while evidence of metalworking and other crafts points to localized production and participation in wider trade networks across the central Tyrrhenian region. The material culture shows both influences from broader Central Italian Iron Age patterns and a continuity that scholars link to the emergence of a distinct Etruscan culture.

By the late 7th century BCE, Villanovan traits begin to transition into what is traditionally called the Etruscan era, including changes in burial practice, monumental tomb architecture, and evolving social and political complexity. The Villanovan phase is thus central to understanding the origins and early development of Etruscan civilization.