The conditions of cultural and economic growth in the Bronze Age of central Italy

Abstract

With one notable exception, the study of Italian prehistory has developed with little emphasis on the economic interpretation of cultures. The exception has been the so-called ‘Apennine’ Bronze Age of central and southern Italy, which has commonly been defined as a cultural phenomenon involving an economy of pastoralism and large-scale stock-keeping. In 1959 Professor S. M. Puglisi published his major examination of the Apennine Bronze Age, which has remained the principal statement of the ‘pastoralist’ hypothesis (Puglisi, 1959). In recent years the Swedish Institute in Rome has carried out an important series of excavations on the acropolis of Luni sul Mignone in northern Lazio (Östenberg, 1967). The excavations discovered imposing house foundations cut into the soft volcanic tufo or tuff; from this architectural evidence, as well as the analysis of faunal and plant remains from Luni and other sites, Professor Östenberg concluded that ‘the Apennine culture had a mixed economy with agriculture and stock-breeding as basic components … pastoral nomadism cannot therefore be looked upon as the primary characteristic feature of the Apennine culture’ (Östenberg, 1967, 260). Puglisi based his argument upon both ethnographic and archaeological evidence.