Luni sul Mignone e problemi della preistoria d’Italia

By Carl Eric Östenberg

Published by the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome. Distributed by Astrom Editions

Summary (excerpt)

The Swedish Institute in Rome, in collaboration with the Soprintendenza alle Antichità dell’Etruria meridionale, started excavating the site named Luni in 1960. The field work went on with annual seasons lasting 2 months during the following three years, and gave interesting results concerning several periods of Italian prehistory.

Luni is situated in the Comune di Blera, Provincia di Viterbo, about 80 kilometres north of Rome and about 20 kilometres inland from Tarquinia, in a district at the foot of the Tolfa Mountains which is nowadays isolated but beautiful. The 550 m long and 140 m wide tuff plateau is separated from its surroundings, with steep sides sloping to the river-eroded valleys on each side. In the Etruscan period it was a military outpost on the southern border of the territory belonging to Tarquinia, fortified in the 5th century B.C. by a city wall, defensive ditches and a castle. The river Mignone that flows just below Luni was the boundary between Tarquinia and Caere. The hill is still called Luni by the inhabitants of this region, and this name can be found in several medieval documents. The earliest source, so far known, is the Liber Pontificalis which mentions Luni in a rebellion during the pontificate of Gregorius II (715–731). The fact that this locality is homonymous with the better known Luni on the river Magra (at the southern border of Liguria) has caused some confusion. Therefore the site is now named Luni sul Mignone. It was inhabited until the middle of the 14th century A.D. and possibly abandoned because of the Black Death. Luni was probably the name of this place in Roman and Etruscan times and it is not unlikely that the name goes back to the prehistoric period.

The author of this book has been in charge of the excavations, and using results from these as a starting-point he takes up some problems of Italian prehistory concerning above all Chalkolithicum and the Apennine Bronze Age.

Contents

Parte prima: I–IV

I. Prefazione, abbreviazioni, elenco delle illustrazioni, elenco delle tabelle

II. Introduzione

III. L’abitato a Tre Erici dal neolitico all’età del ferro

IV. L’abitato appenninico sull’acropoli

Parte seconda: V–VII

V. Il neolitico—la cultura del Sasso di Furbara

VI. Il calcolitico—la facies di Rinaldone

VII. L’età del bronzo—la Civiltà appenninica

Summary

Appendice

Bibliografia

Indice generale

Bibliographical information

Carl Eric Östenberg, Luni sul Mignone e problemi della preistoria d’Italia (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska institutet i Rom-4°, 25), Lund 1967.

Reviews

American Journal of Archaeology 72:2, 1968, 191-192 (Hugh Hencken)

The Classical Review 18:2, 1968, 223-225 (R.M. Ogilvie)

Journal of Roman Studies 59, 1969, 294-295 (D.H. Trump)

L’Antiquité Classique 38:1, 1969, 333-337 (S.J. De Laet)

Latomus 27:2, 1968, 502-503 (Jean-Paul Morel)

Mnemosyne 23:4, 1970, 459-460 (Maria W. Stoop)

Revue Archéologique 1, 1969, 152-153 (Jacques Heurgon)