The concept ofItalic peoples is widely used inlinguistics andhistoriography of ancient Italy. In a strict sense, commonly used in linguistics, it refers to theOsco-Umbrians andLatino-Faliscans, speakers of theItalic languages, a subgroup of theIndo-European language family. In a broader sense, commonly used in historiography, all theancient peoples of Italy are referred to as Italic peoples, including the non-Indo-European ones, asRhaetians,Ligures andEtruscans. As theLatins achieved a dominant position among these tribes, by virtue of the expansion of theRoman civilization, the other Italic tribes adoptedLatin language and culture as part of the process ofRomanization.
The Italics were anethnolinguistic group who are identified by their use of theItalic languages, which form one of the branches ofIndo-European languages.
Outside of the specialised linguistic literature, the term is also used to describe theancient peoples of Italy as defined in Roman times, including pre-Roman peoples like theEtruscans and theRhaetians, who did not speak Indo-European languages.[1] Such use is improper in linguistics, but employed by sources such as theEncyclopædia Britannica, which contends that «Italy attained a unified ethnolinguistic, political, and cultural physiognomy only after the Roman conquest, yet its most ancient peoples remain anchored in the names of the regions of Roman Italy —Latium,Campania,Apulia,Bruttium,Lucania,Emilia Romagna,Samnium,Picenum,Umbria,Etruria,Venetia, andLiguria».[2]
During theCopper Age, at the same time that metalworking appeared,Indo-European speaking peoples are believed to have migrated to Italy in several waves.[3] Associated with this migration are theRemedello culture andRinaldone culture inNorthern andCentral Italy, and theGaudo culture ofSouthern Italy. These cultures were led by a warrior-aristocracy and are considered intrusive.[3] Their Indo-European character is suggested by the presence of weapons in burials, the appearance of the horse in Italy at this time and material similarities with cultures ofCentral Europe.[3]
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According toDavid W. Anthony, between 3100 and 3000 BC, a massive migration of Proto-Indo-Europeans from theYamnaya culture took place into theDanube Valley. Thousands ofkurgans are attributed to this event. These migrations probably split offPre-Italic,Pre-Celtic andPre-Germanic fromProto-Indo-European.[4] By this time theAnatolian peoples and theTocharians had already split off from other Indo-Europeans.[5]Hydronymy shows that the Proto-Germanic homeland was in CentralGermany, which would be very close to the homeland of Italic and Celtic languages as well.[6] The origin of a hypothetical ancestral "Italo-Celtic" people is to be found in today's easternHungary, settled around 3100 BC by theYamnaya culture. This hypothesis is to some extent supported by the observation that Italic shares a large number ofisoglosses and lexical terms withCeltic andGermanic, some of which are more likely to be attributed to theBronze Age.[3] In particular, using Bayesian phylogenetic methods, Russell Gray and Quentin Atkinson argued that Proto-Italic speakers separated from Proto-Germanics 5500 years before present, i.e. roughly at the start of the Bronze Age.[7] This is further confirmed by the fact that the Germanic language family shares more vocabulary with the Italic family than with the Celtic language family.[8]
From the late third to the early second millennium BC, tribes coming both from the north and from Franco-Iberia brought theBeaker culture[9] and the use of bronze smithing, to thePo Valley, toTuscany and to the coasts ofSardinia andSicily. The Beakers could have been the link which brought the Yamnaya dialects fromHungary toAustria andBavaria. These dialects might then have developed intoProto-Celtic.[10] The arrival of Indo-Europeans into Italy is in some sources ascribed to the Beakers.[1] A migration across theAlps fromEast-Central Europe by early Indo-Europeans is thought to have occurred around 1800 BC.[11][12] According to Barfield the appearance ofPolada culture is connected to the movement of new populations coming from southernGermany and fromSwitzerland.[13] According toBernard Sergent, the origin of theLigurian linguistic family (in his opinion distantly related to the Celtic and Italic ones) would have to be found in the Polada and Rhone cultures, southern branches of theUnetice culture. These individuals settled in the foothills of the Eastern Alps and present a material culture similar to contemporary cultures of Switzerland, Southern Germany, and Austria.[14]
In the mid-second millennium BCE, theTerramare culture developed in the Po Valley.[15] The Terramare culture takes its name from the black earth (terra marna) residue of settlement mounds, which have long served the fertilizing needs of local farmers. These people were still hunters, but had domesticated animals; they were fairly skillful metallurgists, casting bronze in moulds of stone and clay, and they were also agriculturists, cultivatingbeans, thevine,wheat andflax. TheLatino-Faliscan people have been associated with this culture, especially by the archaeologistLuigi Pigorini.[3]
TheUrnfield culture might have brought proto-Italic people from among the "Italo-Celtic" tribes who remained in Hungary into Italy.[10] These tribes are thought to have penetrated Italy from the east during the latesecond millennium BC through theProto-Villanovan culture.[10] They later crossed theApennine Mountains and settled central Italy, includingLatium. Before 1000 BC several Italic tribes had probably entered Italy. These divided into various groups and gradually came to occupy central Italy and southern Italy.[12] This period was characterized by widespread upheaval in the Mediterranean, including the emergence of theSea Peoples and theLate Bronze Age collapse.[16]
TheProto-Villanovan culture dominated the peninsula and replaced the precedingApennine culture. The Proto-Villanovans practicedcremation and buried the ashes of their dead in Urnfield-style double-cone shaped funerary urns, often decorated with geometric designs. Elite graves containing jewellery, bronze armour and horse harness fittings were separated from ordinary graves, showing for the first time the development of a highly hierarchical society, so characteristic ofIndo-European cultures.[17] The burial characteristics relate the Proto-Villanovan culture to the Central European Urnfield culture and CelticHallstatt culture that succeeded it. It is not possible to tell these apart in their earlier stages.[18] Generally speaking, Proto-Villanovan settlements have been found in almost the whole Italian peninsula from Veneto to eastern Sicily, although they were most numerous in the northern-central part of Italy. The most important settlements excavated are those of Frattesina inVeneto region,Bismantova inEmilia-Romagna and near theMonti della Tolfa, north ofRome. Various authors, such asMarija Gimbutas, associated this culture with the arrival, or the spread, of the proto-Italics into theItalian peninsula.[19]
In the 13th century BC, Proto-Celts (probably the ancestors of theLepontii people), coming from the area of modern-daySwitzerland, easternFrance and south-western Germany (RSFO Urnfield group), enteredNorthern Italy (Lombardy, easternPiedmont andTicino), starting theCanegrate culture, who not long time after, merging with the indigenousLigurians, produced the mixedGolasecca culture.[20][21] Canegrate had a cultural dynamic, as expressed in its pottery and bronzework, that was completely new to the area and was a typical example of the westernHallstatt culture.[22][23] The name comes from the locality ofCanegrate in Lombardy, south ofLegnano and 25 km north ofMilan, whereGuido Sutermeister discovered important archaeological finds (approximately 50 tombs with ceramics and metallic objects).[24] It is one of the richer archeological sites ofNorthern Italy.[25]
In the early Iron Age, the relatively homogeneous Proto-Villanovan culture (1200-900 BC), closely associated with the CelticHallstatt culture of Alpine Austria, characterised by the introduction of iron-working and the practice of cremation coupled with the burial of ashes in distinctive pottery, shows a process of fragmentation and regionalisation. In Tuscany and in part of Emilia-Romagna, Latium andCampania, the Proto-Villanovan culture was followed by theVillanovan culture. The earliest remains of Villanovan culture date back to circa 900 BC.
In the region south of theTiber (Latium Vetus), theLatial culture of theLatins emerged, while in the north-east of the peninsula theEste culture of theVeneti appeared. Roughly in the same period, from their core area in central Italy (modern-dayUmbria andSabina region), theOsco-Umbrians began to emigrate in various waves, through the process ofVer sacrum, the ritualized extension of colonies, in southern Latium,Molise and the whole southern half of the peninsula, replacing the previous tribes, such as theOpici and theOenotrians. This corresponds with the emergence of the Terni culture, which had strong similarities with the Celtic cultures of Hallstatt andLa Tène.[26] TheUmbrian necropolis ofTerni, which dates back to the 10th century BC, was identical in every aspect to the Celtic necropolis of the Golasecca culture.[27]
By the mid-first millennium BC, the Latins ofRome were growing in power and influence. This led to the establishment ofancient Roman civilization. In order to combat the non-Italic Etruscans, several Italic tribes united in theLatin League. After the Latins had liberated themselves from Etruscan rule they acquired a dominant position among the Italic tribes. Frequent conflict between various Italic tribes followed. The best documented of these are thewars between the Latins and theSamnites.[1]
The Latins eventually succeeded in unifying the Italic elements in the country. Many non-Latin Italic tribes adopted Latin culture and acquired Roman citizenship. During this time Italiccolonies were established throughout the country, and non-Italic elements eventually adopted theLatin language and culture in a process known asRomanization.[12] In the early first century BC, several Italic tribes, in particular theMarsi and the Samnites, rebelled against Roman rule. This conflict is called theSocial War. After Roman victory was secured, all peoples in Italy, except for theCelts of the Po Valley, were grantedRoman citizenship.[1]
In the subsequent centuries, Italic tribes were assimilated intoLatin culture in a process known asRomanization.
Italian peoples such as theEtruscans had already developed forms of theatrical literature.[28] The legend, also reported byLivy, speaks of a pestilence that had struck Rome, at the beginning, and the request for Etruscan historians. The Roman historian thus refused the filiation from the Greek theater before contacts withMagna Graecia and its theatrical traditions. There are no architectural and artistic testimonies of the Etruscan theater.[28] A very late source, such as the historianVarro, mentions the name of a certain Volnius who wrote tragedies in theEtruscan language.
Even theSamnites had original representational forms that had a lot of influence on Roman dramaturgy such as theAtellan Farce comedies, and some architectural testimonies such as the theater ofPietrabbondante inMolise, and that ofNocera Superiore on which the Romans built their own.[29] The construction of the Samnite theaters of Pietrabbondante and Nocera make the architectural filiation of the Greek theater understood.
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A genetic study published inScience in November 2019 examined the remains of sixLatin males buried nearRome between 900 BC and 200 BC. They carried the paternal haplogroupsR-M269,R-311, R-PF7589 andR-P312 and the maternal haplogroupsH1aj1a,T2c1f,H2a,U4a1a,H11a andH10. A female from the precedingProto-Villanovan culture carried the maternal haplogroupsU5a2b.[30] These examined individuals were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of about 25–35%steppe ancestry.[31] Overall, the genetic differentiation between the Latins, Etruscans and the preceding Proto-Villanovan population of Italy was found to be insignificant.[32] The Iron Age and earlyRepublican Italic and Etruscan samples overlaps with present-dayItalians and otherwest Mediterranean populations.[33][34][35][36][37][38]
Of individuals associated with the first time interval, the vast majority (40 of 48) form a genetic cluster here named "C.Italy_Etruscan" that overlaps with present-day Spanish individuals in a principal components analysis
The majority of Italian Iron Age individuals are projected broadly in the same regions of the PCA (Principal Component Analysis) as modern Italian and west Mediterranean populations.
By the founding of Rome, the genetic composition of the region approximated that of modern Mediterranean populations.
Our samples are largely scattered between modern peninsular Italians and Sardinians
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of October 2025 (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)In agreement with previous findings about other Italic IA cultural groups, the Picenes show a slight deviation from the genetic distribution of modern Central Italians, being shifted towards Northern Italians and, more in general, Central Europeans
These figures also show that the genetic make-up of Italy during the Iron Age was close to the pattern of modern-day populations.
