Description
Between the end of the 17th and 16th centuries BC, in the middle of the Bronze Age, dozens of villages, the so-called “terramare”, began to flourish in the Po Valley, with peculiar structural characteristics and a homogeneous heritage of artefacts. The villages, which extended from one to over 10 hectares, were on average 5/6 kilometres apart and their economy was based on rather advanced agriculture and livestock farming. Within the villages, each family independently produced pottery, fabrics, wooden artefacts and, perhaps, horn; ceramic production was particularly intense and excavations (both from the 19th century and more recent) highlighted the wide repertoire of shapes in use, some of which were characterised by the presence of a particular handle, with horn-like ends. Fabrics were also made in the domestic sphere (using wooden and terracotta tools, such as spindles, whorls, vertical looms and their weights). : The workmanship of deer antlers was also widely practiced in the Terramare area, perhaps at least partly the work of a specialized craftsman; the production of bronze objects, including weapons, tools, and personal ornaments, was certainly the prerogative of a specialized figure. A series of valuable goods, such as amber, glass paste buttons, and ornamental shells suggest the existence, within the communities, of a small elite made up of warriors and their families. With the Terramare civilization, a new funeral rite, cremation, was definitively established: the burnt bones were collected and placed in specially made urns, then buried outside the village; no grave goods were provided, but parts of bronze objects, intentionally broken, were often found in the ground surrounding the burials. After centuries of prosperity, around 1200 BC, the economic system of the Terramare culture entered into crisis due to the impoverishment of the land, overexploited for centuries, and a period of drought; within a few decades almost all the villages were abandoned and a long period of depopulation began in the Emilian plain.
Bibliography
Le terramare: la più antica civiltà padana, edited by Maria Bernabò Brea, Andrea Cardarelli, Mauro Cremaschi, Milano, Electa, 1997
Storia di Parma. Parma romana, edited by Domenico Vera, Parma, Monte Università Parma, 2009
“…le terremare si scavano per concimare i prati…” La nascita dell’archeologia preistorica a Parma nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento, edited by Maria Bernabò Brea and Angela Mutti, Parma, Artegrafica Silva, 1994
Artworks and Collections
