Latial culture

⭐ In the context of Latial culture, the distinctive hut-shaped burial urns are most significantly indicative of what aspect of this society?

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⭐ Core Definition: Latial culture

The Latial culture (c. 900–700 a.C.) was an Iron Age culture of central Latium, in Central Italy, associated with the proto-Latin population, ranged approximately over ancient Old Latium. The Apennine culture of Latium transitioned smoothly into the Latial with no evidence of an intrusive population movement. The population generally abandoned sites of purely economic advantage in favor of defensible sites which later became cities. The term pre-urban is used for this era. The population movement to more defensible sites may indicate an increase in marauding. The Iron Age Latial culture is associated with the processes of formation of the Latins, the culture was likely therefore to represent a phase of the socio-political self-consciousness of the Latin tribe, during the period of the kings of Alba Longa and the foundation of the Roman Kingdom.

Latial culture is identified by their hut-shaped burial urns. Urns of the Proto-Villanovan culture are plain and biconical and were buried in a deep shaft. The hut urn is a round or square model of a hut with a peaked roof. The interior is accessed by a door on one of its sides. Cremation was practiced as well as burial. The style is distinctive. The hut urns were miniature versions of the huts in which the population lived, although during this period they also developed the use of stone for temples and other public buildings.

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Latial culture in the context of Latins (Italic tribe)

The Latins (Latin: Latīnī), sometimes known as the Latials or Latians, were an Italic tribe that included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome (see Roman people). From about 1000 BC, the Latins inhabited the small region known to the Romans as Old Latium (in Latin Latium vetus), the area in the Italian Peninsula between the river Tiber and the promontory of Mount Circeo 100 km (62 mi) southeast of Rome. Following the Roman expansion, the Latins spread into the Latium adiectum, inhabited by Osco-Umbrian peoples.

Their language, Latin, belonged to the Italic branch of Indo-European. Speakers of Italic languages are assumed to have migrated into the Italian Peninsula during the late Bronze Age (1200–900 BC). The material culture of the Latins, known as the Latial culture, was a distinctive subset of the proto-Villanovan culture that appeared in parts of the Italian peninsula in the first half of the 12th century BC. Before and after their political unification under Rome in 338 BC, the Latins maintained close cultural and religious relations, including common festivals and religious sanctuaries.

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Latial culture in the context of Antium

Antium was an ancient coastal town in Latium, south of Rome. An oppidum was founded by people of Latial culture (11th century BC or the beginning of the 1st millennium BC), then it was the main stronghold of the Volsci people until it was conquered by the Romans.

In some versions of Rome's foundation myth, Antium was founded by Anteias, son of Odysseus.

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