The Latial culture (c. 900–700 BCE) was an Iron Age culture of central Latium, in central Italy, associated with the proto-Latin population, ranged approximately over ancient Old Latium. 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 which later became cities. The term pre-urban is used for this era. The population movement to more defensible sites may indicate an increase in marauding. The Iron Age Latial culture is associated with the processes of formation of the Latins, the culture was likely therefore to represent 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.
Latial culture is identified by their hut-shaped burial urns. Urns of the Proto-Villanovan culture are plain and biconical and were buried in a deep shaft. The hut urn is a round or square model of a hut with a peaked roof. The interior is accessed by a door on one of its sides. Cremation was practiced as well as burial. The style is distinctive. The hut urns were miniature versions of the huts in which the population lived, although during this period they also developed the use of stone for temples and other public buildings.Gordon (2007), p. 46.
Chronology
Giovanni Pinza, an Italian archaeologist, initially identified two periods based upon the material culture of the tombs in the Esquiline or the Forum. The first period—which corresponds to Latial I-III—was marked by the lack of Greek imports or light-ground pottery. Conversely, the second period—which corresponds to Latial IVA-IVB—was defined by the presence of such goods. Later work building upon Pinza's research identified further periods of Latial history, most of which were defined based upon changes in Latial pottery styles. The standard periodization based on pottery is accepted as standard with little variation; however, a tolerance of ±25 years is implied.Giovanni Colonna, Preistoria e protostoria di Roma e del Lazio, in Popoli e civiltà dell'Italia antica, II, Roma, 1974, pp. 275-346. (Italian)
The archaeologist Einar Gjerstad argued that pottery typology can be an unreliable source for establishing chronology, as—according to Gjerstad—attempts to catalogue the standard styles of a particular period excessively simplify the smaller-scale variations in technique between different workshops and craftsmen, who will naturally develop their own personalized art styles that combine individual input with inspiration from preceding periods. More recent work based on dendrochronology has indicated a need to revise some periodization, with preserved timbers indicating that the traditional chronology may be some fifty years later out of sync with the rest of Europe; this raises some difficulty inasmuch as the timbers' dates disagree with pottery's dates.
The first period of the Latial culture corresponds with the remains of the Proto-Villanovan culture, which is itself dated to around 1200-900 BCE. Based purely upon material culture, the first period of Latial society is distinguished by the usage of undecorated pottery, the appearance of the hut urn, and the predilection for cremation burials. Utilizing a set of such cremation burials from Rome, the approximate time period of the first Latial period can be carbon dated to the 11th-10th centuries BCE. From Latial I–II, inhumation gradually replaced cremation as the main funerary rite.
Carbon dating of period II inhumation burials from Rome suggests that the second Latial period dates from the 10th-9th centuries BCE. Most of the graves from the cemetery of Gabii can be assigned to the Latial culture IIA1 and IIB2 based on their grave goods and, moreover, carbon dating suggests that they belonged to the 9th-century BCE. Period II is characterized by the usage of simple patterns to decorate pottery and the presence of thickened bow fibulae within female burials. The distinction between Latial periods IIA and IIB was initially postulated by the German archaeologist Hermann Müller-Karpe on the basis of differences in pottery typology between the Esquiline and the Forum necropolises during period II. Karpe argued that they likely belonged to separate periods of Latial history and, consequently, distinct stages of Latial pottery style. Alternatively, the discrepancies in pottery production may reflect the various techniques of different, albeit contemporary, workshops.
The second and third periods corresponds with the Villanovan culture in Etruria. According to the archeologist R. Ross Holloway, period II in the chronology of Veii likely is contemporaneous with period III in Latial chronology, as both succeed the Proto-Villanovan culture. Holloway proposes that, given numerous pottery artifacts from Veii date to after 750 BCE, the end of Latial IIB and the beginning of period III can also be estimated to have occurred around 750. However, this chronological assessment is contradicted by the results of the carbon dating samples from the hut at Fidene. The material culture of this hut prompts an identification with the end of the Latial period IIB or the beginning of period III, although the results of carbon dating indicate that it could not be dated after 820 BCE. Additional evidence from Satricum corroborates the dating of the early Latial III period to late 9th and early 8th centuries BCE. Two huts at the site which include pottery generally associated with the Latial period III also both contain charcoal samples that—based on carbon dating—allow the assignment of one hut to the 9th-century BCE and another hut to the period between 830-790 BCE. PeriodDate BC (Cornell)Date BC (Lomas), under the table heading "Revised Dates".PhaseLatial I1000-9001085–1020Pre-urban (Late Bronze Age)Latial IIA900-8301020–950Pre-urban (Early Iron Age)Latial IIB830-770 950–880Proto-urban (Early Iron Age)Latial III770-730880–750Proto-urban (Early Iron Age)Latial IVA730-630Proto-urban (Early and middle orientalizing)Latial IVB630-580Archaic urban (Late orientalizing)
Urbanization
Proto-urban cities Little of the architecture of ancient Latium remains, as the construction materials utilized during this period—rammed earth, mud bricks, lumber—were vulnerable to decay. Surviving material from Latial houses during periods I and II indicate a lack of masonry techniques; instead, oval wattle and daub huts with diameters rarely greater than with thatched roofs were common. The early Latial period is characterized by small villages, typically located on hilltops or open plains, with populations likely less than a few hundred. From around 650 BCE onwards, masonry on stone foundations with tiled roofing began to appear in central Italy, although, shortly after this development—in certain areas—older huts continued to exist alongside newer stone structures. According to Potts, the architectural and technological development in Latium was at least partially influenced by migrant Greek architects and craftsmen, who may have been specifically enticed to immigrate by Latial aristocrats seeking to emulate the culture of the Greek world.
Hilltop sites may have been chosen as they were conducive to birdwatching, or augury, an important religious practice in ancient Rome. Sites such as the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in Rome, which is built atop the Capitoline Hill, and the—potentially sacred—hut at Satricum, which is built atop a hill at its settlement, may indicate that these hilltop areas possessed religious connotations. It is possible that these ancient cultural notions are reflected in the works of Vitruvius, a 1st-century BCE Roman architect who recommends that—in cities believed to operate under the protection of a certain deity or collection of deities—the "sacred buildings" of the aforementioned divine beings ought to be placed at the highest point in the local area, so that the temple may overlook the entire settlement.Vitruvius. De Architectura. 17.1. However, the archaeologist Charlotte R. Potts argues that the distribution of later cult sites reveals no correlation with hilltops. Instead, Potts proposes that cult sites may have been established in these areas to serve the local population, which had chosen to settle on hilltop spaces due to the defensive advantages that elevated areas offer. Afterwards, these sites may have then been retroactively assigned greater sociocultural prominence on account of their antiquity.
During the Bronze Age, numerous communities formed around the Alban Hills, likely due to the extreme fertility of the soil and the multitude of streams in the area, which provided convenient sources of water. Based on this trend, it has been presumed that the Alban Hills may have functioned as the center of urbanization in Old Latium during the Bronze Age. According to the archaeologist Daniele Maras, the importance of the Alban Hills within early Latial history may be reflected in the later Roman religion, in which the Alban Mountain served as the site of the ("Latin Festival") and a temple to Jupiter Latarius. Furthermore, the archaeologist Timothy Cornell argues that these customs provide evidence for the existence of a shared Latin ethnic identity since "the earliest times."
Over the course of the Middle Bronze Age, 86% of settlements within the vicinity of Rome were abandoned. In the ensuing Early Iron Age, within the same region, 78% of settlements were newly formed within the era. Based on this data, Fulminante concludes that there must have been a radical shift in Latial settlement organization around this period. Beginning in the 10th-9th centuries BCE, the first proto-urban centers began to form in Latium. The traditional framework for conceptualizing urbanization in central Italy maintains that Etruria underwent an abrupt shift towards proto-urban settlements whereas Latium adopted proto-urban sites more slowly. However, this trend was not uniform across either Latium or Etruria. For instance, it is likely that the two Bronze Age settlements on the Palatine and the Capitoline had already coalesced into a single proto-urban city by the Iron Age, at the same time when most other Latial communities had only begun the process of urbanization. Fulminante argues that the traditional view likely only holds true in a broad sense, although it does not fully account for the nuances of each settlement's individual development.
Proto-urban centers near-unilaterally developed around large naturally defensible plateau areas with steep slopes characterized by fertile soil and access to roads or rivers. Typically, the plateaus were situated near acropolises that had previously been inhabited during the Bronze Age. From periods IIIA-IIIB, the plateau areas became increasingly densely populated, while the surrounding communities were abandoned. Fulminante interprets this trend as evidence of the development of perceived territorial boundaries for proto-urban sites, which became more officially marked by the creation of fortifications around the settlement. Multiplicatively weighted Voronoi diagrams may provide further evidence for the creation of increasingly defined territorial boundaries around proto-urban centers during the second half of the 10th-century BCE. Analysis utilizing such diagrams performed by Fulminante showcases that sites such as Praeneste, Alba Longa, and Satricum had all emerged as proto-urban settlements by this time period. During the Early Iron Age, in the Nettuno area, a phenomenon of "rural infill" occurred in which smaller farmsteads or hamlets emerged that were situated near, and likely fell under the authority of, the proto-urban cities.
Spatial Efficiency Model