THE IRON AGE IN ETRURIA, LATIUM, AND CAMPANIA
Beginning in the ninth century, there occurred a series of developments in Italy leading, by the seventh century, to the appearance of the cities that would turn out to dominate Italian history. Archeologists refer to the years between the start of the ninth century and the last third of the eighth as the Iron Age. The extraction of metal from the ore and the working of the iron require complex and sophisticated techniques, and the making of steel is an even more elaborate process.
Iron has important advantages over bronze. Iron ore is relatively common, so that the acquisition of this metal is a much simpler and cheaper process; when used in the form of steel, tools and weapons can be made harder and better able to retain an edge. Eventually, the use of iron would lead to cheaper products, which can be employed for a wider range of functions and by a larger portion of the population. For centuries after the introduction of iron, however, a wide range of objects, util-itarian and otherwise, continued to be made of bronze, wood, bone, and stone.
In the ninth and eighth centuries, Etruria, Latium, and Campania saw the rise of an inter-related group of cultures that would eventually develop into major centers of power and wealth. In Etruria, the Iron Age culture of these centuries is known as “Villanovan” from the estate near modern Bologna where archeologists first found traces of its material culture. Beyond Etruria, Villanovan settlements also appear in some areas just across the Apennines—such as around modern Bologna especially—and in Campania, where Capua and other centers show close connections with southern Etruria by sea or by the land route up the valleys of the Liris, Anio, and Tiber rivers. One of Villanovan culture’s most significant traits was the greatly increased size of its settlements. Beginning around 900, certain ones began to grow larger, sometimes through the abandonment of earlier vil¬lages and the concentration of population at a few centers.
For the most part, these central places were on easily defended plateaus, where the natural features of the site, occasionally reinforced by ditches and banks, formed the primary defense. In southern Etruria, which has been more fully researched, settlements at the future sites of Caere, Tarquinii, and Veii may each have had over one thousand inhabitants. To judge by the distance between them, the chief centers may have controlled territories as large as 350–750 square miles (900–1,940 sq km). At first, land away from the core may have only been sparsely inhabited, but by the eighth century some large settlements seem to have established smaller sec¬ondary ones near the limits of their territory, perhaps as a way of securing control over their borders, or because the main center was now too densely inhabited to accommodate further population growth.