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The concept of Italic peoples is widely used in linguistics and historiography of ancient Italy. In a strict sense, commonly used in linguistics, it refers to the Osco-Umbrians and Latino-Faliscans, speakers of the Italic languages, a subgroup of the Indo-European language family. In a broader sense, commonly used in historiography, all the ancient peoples of Italy are referred to as Italic peoples, including the non-Indo-European ones, such as Rhaetians and Etruscans.

The Italic peoples emerged from the Urnfield and Tumulus groups, who spread across Italy during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age.^[1][2] Their distinctive material culture, known as the proto-Villanovan culture, appeared in parts of the Italian peninsula in the first half of the 12th century BC. As the Latins achieved a dominant position among these groups, by virtue of the expansion of the Roman civilization, the other Italic peoples adopted the Latin language and culture as part of the process of Romanization.^[3]

The Italics were an ethnolinguistic group who are identified by their use of the Italic languages, which form one of the branches of Indo-European languages. Archaeologists and linguists generally associate the first peoples clearly identifiable as proto-Italic with the Bell Beaker and Urnfield groups, who during the Bronze Age migrated from the north and east of the Alps to the Italian peninsula in multiple waves.^[4][5][6]

Italic-speaking peoples inhabited much of central and southern Italy in the first millennium BC. Their languages are traditionally divided into Latin-Faliscan and Sabellic (often called Osco-Umbrian) groups. The Latins and Falisci were associated with Latium and neighboring areas, while Oscan- and Umbrian-speaking populations occupied extensive parts of central and southern Italy. Ancient sources also mention peoples such as the Oenotrians, Italii, Ausones, Aurunci and Opici in southern Italy, although their precise linguistic affiliations are uncertain. The Veneti of northeastern Italy spoke Venetic, an Indo-European language whose classification within the Italic branch has been debated. The Sicels of eastern Sicily spoke another poorly attested Indo-European language with possible Italic affinities.^[7][8]

Outside of the specialised linguistic literature, the term is also used to describe the ancient peoples of Italy as defined in Roman times, including pre-Roman peoples such as the Etruscans and the Rhaetians, who did not speak Indo-European languages.^[9] Such use is improper in linguistics, but employed by sources such as the Encyclopædia Britannica.^[10]

During the Copper Age, at the same time that metalworking appeared, Indo-European speaking peoples are believed to have migrated to Italy in several waves.^[11] Associated with this migration are the Remedello culture and Rinaldone culture in Northern and Central Italy, and the Gaudo culture of Southern Italy. These cultures were led by a warrior-aristocracy and are considered intrusive.^[11] 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 of Central Europe.^[11]

According to David W. Anthony, between 3100 and 3000 BC, a massive migration of Proto-Indo-Europeans from the Yamnaya culture into the Danube Valley took place. Thousands of kurgans, or burial mounds, are attributed to this event. These migrations probably split off Pre-Italic, Pre-Celtic and Pre-Germanic from Proto-Indo-European.^[13] By this time the Anatolian peoples and the Tocharians had already split off from other Indo-Europeans.^[14]

The origin of a hypothetical ancestral "Italo-Celtic" people is to be found in today's eastern Hungary, settled around 3100 BC by the Yamnaya culture. This hypothesis is to some extent supported by the observation that Italic shares a large number of isoglosses and lexical terms with Celtic and Germanic, some of which are more likely to be attributed to the Bronze Age.^[11] 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.^[15] 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.^[16]

From the late third to the early second millennium BC, tribes coming both from the north and from Franco-Iberia brought the Beaker culture^[17] and the use of bronze smithing to the Po Valley, to Tuscany and to the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily. The Beakers could have been the link which brought the Yamnaya dialects from Hungary to Austria and Bavaria. These dialects might then have developed into Proto-Celtic.^[18]

The arrival of Indo-Europeans into Italy is in some sources ascribed to the Beakers.^[9] A migration across the Alps from East-Central Europe by early Indo-Europeans is thought to have occurred around 1800 BC.^[19][20] According to Barfield the appearance of Polada culture is connected to the movement of new populations coming from southern Germany and from Switzerland.^[21] According to Bernard Sergent, the origin of the Ligurian linguistic family (in his opinion distantly related to the Italic and Celtic ones) can be traced back to the Rhône and Polada cultures, both strongly linked to Central European Unetice traditions.^[22][23] Raffaele de Marinis has further hypothesized that a Proto-Celtic presence dates back to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (16th–15th century BC), a period when northwestern Italy appears deeply linked, regarding the production of bronze artifacts, including ornaments, to the western groups of the Tumulus culture (1600–1200 BC).^[24]

In the mid-second millennium BCE, the Terramare culture developed in the Po Valley.^[25] 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, cultivating beans, the vine, wheat and flax. The Latino-Faliscan people have been associated with this culture, especially by the archaeologist Luigi Pigorini.^[11]

The Urnfield culture might have brought proto-Italic people from among the "Italo-Celtic" tribes who remained in Hungary into Italy.^[18][26] These tribes are thought to have penetrated Italy from the east during the late second millennium BC through the Proto-Villanovan culture.^[18] They later crossed the Apennine Mountains and settled central Italy, including Latium. 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.^[20] This period was characterized by widespread upheaval in the Mediterranean, including the emergence of the Sea Peoples and the Late Bronze Age collapse.^[27]

The Proto-Villanovan culture dominated the peninsula and replaced the preceding Apennine culture. The Proto-Villanovans practiced cremation 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 of Indo-European cultures.^[28] The burial characteristics relate the Proto-Villanovan culture to the Central European Urnfield culture and Celtic Hallstatt culture that succeeded it. It is not possible to tell these apart in their earlier stages.^[29] 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 in Veneto region, Bismantova in Emilia-Romagna and near the Monti della Tolfa, north of Rome. Various authors, such as Marija Gimbutas, associated this culture with the arrival, or the spread, of the proto-Italics into the Italian Peninsula.^[30]

In the 13th century BC, Proto-Celts (probably the ancestors of the Lepontii people), coming from the area of modern-day Switzerland, eastern France and south-western Germany (RSFO Urnfield group), entered Northern Italy (Lombardy, eastern Piedmont and Ticino), starting the Canegrate culture, who not long time after, merging with the indigenous Ligurians, produced the mixed Golasecca culture.^[31][32] 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 western Hallstatt culture.^[33][34] The name comes from the locality of Canegrate in Lombardy, south of Legnano and 25 km north of Milan, where Guido Sutermeister discovered important archaeological finds (approximately 50 tombs with ceramics and metallic objects).^[35] It is one of the richer archeological sites of Northern Italy.^[36]

In the early Iron Age, the relatively homogeneous Proto-Villanovan culture (1200-900 BC), closely associated with the Celtic Hallstatt 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.^[37] In Tuscany and in part of Emilia-Romagna, Latium and Campania, the Proto-Villanovan culture was followed by the Villanovan culture. The earliest remains of Villanovan culture date back to circa 900 BC.^[38]

In the region south of the Tiber (Latium Vetus), the Latial culture of the Latins emerged, while in the north-east of the peninsula the Este culture of the Veneti appeared. Roughly in the same period, from their core area in central Italy (modern-day Umbria and Sabina region), the Osco-Umbrians began to emigrate in various waves, through the process of Ver sacrum, the ritualized extension of colonies, in southern Latium, Molise and the whole southern half of the peninsula, replacing the previous tribes, such as the Opici and the Oenotrians. This corresponds with the emergence of the Terni culture, which had strong similarities with the Celtic cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène.^[39] The Umbrian necropolis of Terni, which dates back to the 10th century BC, was identical in every aspect to the Celtic necropolis of the Golasecca culture.^[40]

By the mid-first millennium BC, the Latins of Rome were growing in power and influence. This led to the establishment of ancient Roman civilization. In order to combat the non-Italic Etruscans, several Italic tribes united in the Latin 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 the wars between the Latins and the Samnites.^[9]

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 Italic colonies were established throughout the country, and non-Italic elements eventually adopted the Latin language and culture in a process known as Romanization.^[20]

In the early first century BC, several Italic tribes, in particular the Marsi and the Samnites, rebelled against Roman rule. This conflict is called the Social War. After Roman victory was secured, all peoples in Italy, except for the Celts of the Po Valley, were granted Roman citizenship.^[9]

Italian peoples such as the Etruscans had already developed forms of theatrical literature.^[41] A very late source, the historian Varro, mentions the name of a certain Volnius who wrote tragedies in the Etruscan language. There is, however, no architectural or artistic evidence of the Etruscan theater.^[41]

The legend, also reported by Livy, speaks of how the Romans sought assistance from Etruscan actors and pipe-players doing a sort of song and dance to appease the gods when their own rituals failed to ward off a plague.^[42] This predated contacts with Magna Graecia and its theatrical traditions.

Even the Samnites had original theatrical forms, such as the Atellan Farce comedies, that influenced Roman dramaturgy; there is also some architectural evidence such as the theater of Pietrabbondante in Molise, and that of Nocera Superiore on which the Romans built their own.^[43] The construction of the Samnite theaters of Pietrabbondante and Nocera evidence the architectural influence of the Greek theater.

A genetic study published in Science in November 2019 examined the remains of six Latin males buried near Rome between 900 BC and 200 BC. They carried the paternal haplogroups R-M269, R-311, R-PF7589 and R-P312 and the maternal haplogroups H1aj1a, T2c1f, H2a, U4a1a, H11a and H10. A female from the preceding Proto-Villanovan culture carried the maternal haplogroups U5a2b.^[44] These examined individuals were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of about 25–35% steppe ancestry.^[45] Overall, the genetic differentiation between the Latins, Etruscans and the preceding Proto-Villanovan population of Italy was found to be insignificant.^[46] The Iron Age and early Republican Italic and Etruscan samples overlap with present-day Italians and other west Mediterranean populations.^{[47][48][49][50][51][52]}

• List of Italic peoples
• Romance-speaking world
• Legacy of the Roman Empire
• Pan-Latinism

• Anthony, David (2007). The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-05887-0.
• Antonio, Margaret L.; et al. (November 8, 2019). "Ancient Rome: A genetic crossroads of Europe and the Mediterranean". Science. 366 (6466). American Association for the Advancement of Science: 708–714. Bibcode:2019Sci...366..708A. doi:10.1126/science.aay6826. PMC 7093155. PMID 31699931.
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• Moscati, Sabatino (1998). Così nacque l'Italia: profili di popoli riscoperti. Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale.
• Pigorini, Luigi (1910). Gli abitanti primitivi dell'Italia. Rome: Bertero.
• Pop, Ioan-Aurel (1996). Romanians and Hungarians from the 9th to the 14th century. Romanian Cultural Foundation. ISBN 0-88033-440-1.
• Pop, Ioan-Aurel (1999). Romanians and Romania: A Brief History. East European Monographs. ISBN 973-577-037-7.
• Treptow, Kurt W. [in Romanian] (1996). A History of Romania. East European Monographs. ISBN 0-88033-345-6.
• Villar, Francisco (1997). Gli Indoeuropei e le origini dell'Europa. Bologna: Il Mulino. ISBN 88-15-05708-0.
• Waldman, Carl; Mason, Catherine (2006). Encyclopedia of European Peoples. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 1-4381-2918-1.

• M. Aberson, R. Wachter, «Ombriens, Sabins, Picéniens, peuples sabelliques des Abruzzes : une enquête historique, épigraphique et linguistique", in : Entre archéologie et Histoire : dialogues sur divers peuples de l'Italie préromaine, Bern, etc., 2014, p. 167-201.