L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, JULY 27, 2017 L'Italo-Americano T here was a time when the Italian Peninsula had yet to become the "Cradle of Western Civilization," a distant era in which Roman and even Etruscan culture did not exist at all. But even in those far-away days, the land we now call Italy had already begun to flourish. Let's delve more deeply into the life and culture of its prehistoric peoples by visiting the remains of the so-called Terramare, a series of mysterious ancient vil- lages in present-day Emilia- Romagna that bring us right back to the Bronze Age. The name terramara (plural: ter r a m ar e) derives from the Emilian dialect "terra marna," that is "fat, soft land," a clear reference to the fertility of the local soil. Originally, however, this term was meant to designate a particular kind of "little hills" (2 to 5 meters high) formed by centuries-long accumulation of dark-colored settlement mounds. Such heaps of fertile black earth were quite common in this area of the Po Valley until the late 19 th century, by w hich time most of them had been destroyed in order to sell the topsoil as fer- tilizer. It is precisely because of this activity that the Bronze Age villages of the Emilia region came to be discovered. As a matter of fact, the recovery of several artifacts from the ground of the terramare heaps in the provinces of Ferrara, Bologna, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Parma, and Piacenza aroused the curios- ity of some scholars, who sus- pected the "little hills" could be ancient burial sites or even sacri- ficial altars: as it became clear during the 1860s with the dis- covery of pile-dwelling settle- ments in Cas tione M arches i (Parma), these were in fact the remains of real prehistoric vil- lages dating back to the period 1650–1150 BC. Thus, the Bronze Age settle- ments of the Po Valley began to be known as Terramare, while the civilization that had once arisen from them was called ter- ramaricola. Over the last centu- ry and a half, more than a hun- dred archaeological sites from this era have come to light not only in Emilia, but also in lower Lombardy and V eneto (for example, near Verona, Mantova, and Cremona): let's not forget, after all, that a considerable number of almost 200 thousands people are said to have inhabited the area at the zenith of the Terramare culture, proving that this was really a rich and well- developed civilization for those days. Even though in most cases SIMONE SANNIO Emilia in the Time of the Terramare: A Glimpse of Prehistoric Italy there was not much left of these villages once the found artifacts had been collected and reallocat- ed to local museums, the nature of these items – along with the extraordinary example given by some of the best-preserved sites, such as those in Castellazzo di Fontanellato (Parma), Montata dell'Orto (Piacenza), and espe- cially M ontale Rangone (Modena) – tell us a great deal about the physical structure of thes e s ettlements as w ell as about the actual society of the Terramare. J ud ging from the many bronze knives, axes, and arrow- heads found in the Terramare, it appears that warriors played a key role in the life of the com- munity. The village itself – a series of aligned stilt houses built on a rectangular plot of land – was almost always sur- round ed by embankments , a moat and a wooden palisade, so as to keep enemies, floods and wild beasts away. At the same time, however, the ditch was surely instrumental as a water reserve for farming and breed- ing, while the recovery of vari- ous s hards , utens ils , and seashells in the zone also testi- fies to the great importance of commerce, metallurgy and craftsmanship for these ancient people. Today, it is easy to under- stand how such a neat and com- plex society must have been based on careful planning as much as on teamwork and par- ticipation in order to thrive. Nonetheless, it continues to be very instructive for us to visit these Emilian Terramare, espe- cially now that they have been turned into open-air museums and archaeological parks. The most famous of them is probably the aforementioned T er r am ar a di Montale near Modena, whose excavation area – still revealing traces of the original ditch and earthworks – has been enriched with a faithful real-size reconstruction of the primitive village's fortifications, gate, and dwellings: in addition, the park also organizes several different activities for the public, such as visits for children, work- shops, team games, and demon- strations of the ancient handi- crafts of the Terramare people. Similar initiatives have been taken to promote the Terramara di Anz ola (Bologna), the Terramara di Pilastri (Ferrara), and the Terramara Santa Rosa di Poviglio (Reggio Emilia), all of which contribute in their own way to our understanding of pre- historic Italy. In the end, though, none of these sites has yet given a clear answer to the most dis- puted question concerning such mysterious, ahead-of-its-time civilization: w hy did the Terramare abruptly start to col- lapse around the year 1200 BC? Why was Emilia then left unin- habited for more than 400 years, until the Etruscans eventually settled in the region? The ulti- mate lesson to be learned is that it probably happened because of overpopulation, over-exploita- tion, and climate change: a clear warning for our times. The archeological park of Terramarein Montale Rangone, Modena The plain of the Po valley of northern Italy, stretches across most of the outwash of the southern slopes of the Alps HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS

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