650 |Arnoaldi |Etruscan | | | | | | tombs | | | -----+----|-------+------------+------------+------------+------------- | | | | |Rise of | 600 | | | | | Carth. | | v | | | Empire. | -----+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------- 550 | | | | | -----+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------- |Marzabotto |Roman | | |Black-figure 500 | |republic. | | | ware | | Capestrano| | |Troy IX | | warrior | | | -----+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------- | | | | |Red-figure 450 | | | | | ware -----+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------- 400 |La Tène | | | | | Culture | | | | -----+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------- The cremation cemetery excavated as early as 1853 at Villanova, near Bologna, produced artifacts (ossuary urns, _fibulae_, razors, hairpins, distaffs, bracelets, fish hooks, tweezers, _repoussé_ bronze belts [see Fig. 1.9]) which match objects found later at other sites farther south, in Latium and Etruria; e.g., the village in the process of excavation since 1955 at San Giovenale, near Bieda, by H. M. King Gustav VI of Sweden. Thus the inference is warranted that this whole area was inhabited in the early Iron Age by a people unified in culture. Since the Villanovans, unlike the aborigines, cremated their dead, we infer that they were foreigners, probably invaders; that they descended from the _terremare_ folk is not proven. That they lived in wattle-and-daub huts roofed with carved beams is inferred from the hut-urns (Fig. 1.10) in which the Southern Villanovans (in Rome and Latium) placed the ashes of their dead. Though these huts show no great advance over those of the Tavoliere or _terremare folk_, the people who lived in them were skilled artisans, producing fine bronze work. The finest example, from the late Arnoaldi period in Bologna (_ca._ 525 B.C.), is the Certosa _situla_ (Fig. 1.11), where the scenes portrayed are so vivid that even a funeral comes to life. In one band is a vignette of rustic festival, where a slave drags a pig by the hind leg, a piper plays, and the lord of the manor ladles his wine while he waits for a dinner of venison. The deer is being brought on a pole by two slaves, while a curly-tailed dog marches beneath. [Illustration: FIG. 1.9 Villanova artifacts. (D. Randall-MacIver, _Villanova and Early Etruscans_, Pl. 2)]