And they traded extensively, and engaged in a lot of craft production.
And they were sort of the economic powerhouse of pretty much all of Italy for
several centuries.
And beyond simply the core of the Terramare culture.
Was what I identify as a sort of a halo of groups.
That were participating in on the margins
of this very powerful economic nexus.
And my claim is I can see in those early centuries that Atria.
Some groups in Atria are participating in these much larger networks.
And then something terrible happens to the Terramare peoples.
And we're not, that's a big that's another question that I'm not gonna tackle today.
It's probably some sort of environmental collapse brought on by overpopulation.
Whatever it was they disintegrate quite dramatically.
But the groups that had been on the margins of that economic whirlwind.
They actually care, they survive, they withstand this collapse of the center.
And seem to become independent at that point and pick up their own,
maintain their own local ties that they had established with the Terramare group.
But, and carry on independently.
And I think it's out of that what had already became a habit of trade and
interaction on the margins of that group in a tree.
That we see the rise of a unique, distinct group
that will become the Etruscans many centuries later.
Back in the recent Bronze Age when the Terramare
group is flourishing in 1350 to 1200 BCE.
You can see on a map when I place the networks.
That I was able to construct using my methodology onto a map.
You can see that there are many sites packed up in Northern Italy.
And then a string of sights, smaller groupings that extend down the peninsula.
Actually as far as the heel of the boot.
But then also into what I'm talking about now.
Particularly interesting, into what is West Central Italy and
where later the Etruscans will arise.
And it's in that tale, extending into West Central Italy,
that I recognize the earliest traces of a group in what will become Atruria.
That's in the recent Bronze Age.
Skip ahead a couple centuries to what's called the final Bronze Age.
The Terramare culture is gone.
That network has disappeared because of, as I mentioned, it had been destroyed.
And its place, we see the peninsula a whole series of smaller
groupings down in Southern Italy, up in the North in the Veneto,
in the East Coast of Italy bordering the Adriatic.
And then in the West as well in Atruria.
We see networks there as well.
And it's at that point that we can really look and
identify from those regional groupings.
The ethnic groups that are visible and will be named and
will be actively fighting against Rome in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE.
So the kinds of artifacts that I used in my study
include things like Mycenean pottery.
This is pottery made by the Mycenean Greeks on the Greek
mainland that was shipped in considerable quantities.
All around the Eastern Mediterranean and in lesser quantities.
But still notable, amounts to as far as Italy,
and even a few pieces have gone as far as Spain.
But, for
our purposes what's interesting is where those Mycenean pots end up in Italy.
Because the Greeks who brought them would almost certainly have
just left them at the along the coast.
So they would have come by boat and deposited them there.
So any pieces that reach inland