Pax Augusta
Elite member
when Rome was founded, not all people in the area were Italic
I should find the data somewhere, but I think Rome in the 4th century BC had already begun its great demographic expansion.
But one thing is the inhabitants of Rome, one thing is the Latins. If we want to know who the Latins really were and came from, we should analyze bones from the Iron Age. But the majority of proto-Latins during the Iron age practiced, I believe, the cremation (although there are interesting exceptions in the Latin world). We have a similar problem with all the protohistoric cultures that settled in Italy and came from the Urnfield culture.
I would like to know if Appenninic culture was already influenced by Central Europe/Steppe mix, so already Italic.
But 3000 BC is still interesting beacuse it could confirm the movements of prospectors from the East (CHG/EEF mix ? J2?). According to Puglisi they were the ancestors of the Italics but i don't know if it's still reliable (1959)
Excellent question, Cato.
Salvatore M. Puglisi was a very good scholar, but his most important scientific production dates back to 50/60 years ago.
The Apennine culture is usually divided into two phases: the proto-Apennine and the sub-Apennine. For most of its life, the most common practice in the Apennine culture is the inhumation/burial. But in the sub-Apennine there is an increasing number of examples of cremation. The arrival of the incineration marks the beginning of the arrival of the first proto-Villanovans or contacts with Terramare? If I remember correctly, these examples of incineration in the sub-Apennine were found between Romagna and Umbria, in what then became the territory of the Umbrians. But there are also examples south of Rome and in other places. Maybe I remember badly, and the incineration in the sub-Apennine phase is spread everywhere, and has nothing to do with the Proto-Villanovans. Cremation in Italy spreads mostly from the north, from the Urnfield culture, as it is testified by the burials of the Proto-Villanovan, but the beginning of its diffusion is earlier: Terramare, Polada ...
At this point the original question is: who are the Italics?
If we follow the linguistic division, there are two distinct Italic linguistic families: on the one hand the Latins, who are usually grouped together with the Faliscans, and sometimes with Veneti and Siculi. The other group is made up of all the Osco-Umbrian languages. Does this division imply that they belong to two distinct migrations? The separation of these two families took place outside or inside Italy?
This is even more complicated, because these languages influenced each other, and of course we have more recent inscriptions and less archaic inscriptions. And so the linguistic division is really accurate and also follows an ethnic division? Or is something accurate and something not?