In regards to Raetic
The term "Raetic" refers to
a few hundred inscriptions found mainly in the Trentino and in South and North Tyrol, as well as sporadically in the Veneto, in Graubünden, and in Slovenia. These inscriptions, written with North Italic alphabets, are roughly dated between the 6
th and the 1
st centuries BC, and are the only documents of the Raetic language, a non-Indo-European language of the Alpine region.
The name Latin
raeti / Greek
ῥαιτοί goes back to ancient historiography, being attested as a designation for certain Alpine tribes (see
Ancient sources). According to Livy, the language spoken by these
raeti was similar to Etruscan. In the early 19
th century, Conte Benedetto Giovanelli, historian and mayor of Trento, applied the term "Raetic" to two inscription finds made in the
Val di Cembra and
Matrei am Brenner, whose language he judged to be similar to Etruscan (see
Modern research on Raetic). This was a bit of a wild guess, but turned out to hit the right thing. The corpus of relevant inscriptions has since increased considerably (see
Raetic epigraphy). It could be delimited in relation to the other script provinces of Northern Italy (see
Script) and associated through its distribution area and find types with the archaeologically defined Fritzens-Sanzeno culture (see
Archaeology in the Raetic area).
The Raetic language as documented in inscriptions written in the alphabets of Sanzeno (Bolzano) and Magrè has turned out to be much more homogenous than expected (or hoped) (see [[index::Modern research on the Raeti and Raetic]]). Despite the fact that its uniformity, though long suspected, has been demonstrated only in the 1990ies, linguistic criteria today make for a better basis for the definition of the Raetic corpus than epigraphic parameters.
Material culture and archaeological groups in the Raetic area
Prehistory
Within the area of settlement that has yielded Raetic inscription finds, three major parts must be kept apart from an archaeological perspective:
1. the northern East Alpine area, i.e. the Inntal and its tributaries north of the Brenner pass (maybe including the Wipptal down to Franzensfeste),
2. the southern East Alpine area, including the Unterengadin, the Eisack- and Pustertal, Osttirol, and the Adige valley from the river's source down to Rovereto,
3. the Alpine foothills between Trento and the Padan plain.
The local Middle Bronze Age culture of the eastern Alps is the Inneralpine Bronzezeitkultur, an inhomogenous entity formed by the input of various migrant groups in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (
Sperber 1992: 79) which extends roughly over the Inntal (Nordtirol), the Engadin and the Alpenrheintal (Graubünden) and possibly parts of Südtirol (
Sperber 1992: 55;
Rageth 1992: 196). In Nordtirol, this culture is succeeded by the Late Bronze Age Nordtiroler Urnenfelderkultur. In Südtirol, the Nordtiroler Urnenfelderkultur triggers the emergence of the Laugen-Melaun culture, extending from the Unterengadin and Münstertal over Süd- and Osttirol and the Trentino to Rovereto. During the Late Bronze Age, the archaeological groups of the Alpine area are unified by the common source of their wealth, their richness in copper. While Laugen-Melaun A reflects the dependence on the northern Urnfield cultures, Laugen-Melaun B and C (Early Iron Age) show a reorientation towards the south-east Este culture (
Gleirscher 1992: 119): in the 10
th century BC, the mining of copper, and with it the inner-Alpine populations, lost in economic importance with the rise of iron working (
Gleirscher 1991: 12). The Venetian Alps and Alpine foothills between the rivers Adige and Brenta in the Late Bronze Age belong with the southern Proto-Villanova culture (
Leonardi 1992: 136).
Late Iron Age
A slow convergence of the three areas can be observed from around the turn of the Early (Hallstatt C–D) to the Late (La Tène) Iron Age, though they never consolidate to form a homogenous "Raetic" culture. From the late 6
th century BC onwards, triggered by the Etruscan and Greek presence in the Padan plain, a new horizon emerges, first manifest in the Southern Alps: the Fritzens-Sanzeno group. The north in the Early Iron Age remains more closely associated with the northern Alpine foreland;
Marzatico 1992: 224 f. sees a reorientation towards the south indicated by the ceramics already in the middle of the 5
th century, but more recently
Gamper 2006: 32, 85 argues for a later date at the turn from the early to the middle LT period around 300 BC. In the south, the Venetian Alps and foothills see an increase in settlement in the 6
th century, the relations with the Fritzens-Sanzeno culture becoming more evident in the course of the 5
th century (
Lora & Ruta Serafini 1992: 267).
Val di Non
The oldest inscribed find from the Raetic core area between Trento and the Bozen basin appears to be the
astragalos from the Ciaslir on the Monte Ozol, the only high-altitude site to yield Raetic inscriptions. The bone comes from a layer dated to Retico A (middle of the 6
th–middle of the 5
th century;
Perini 2002: 767).
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