TranscULturality and social innovation in frontier AReas of pre-Roman Italy

Fundamental transitions in societies can be caused by several factors; amongst those, human connectivity can have a pivotal role.

The TULAR project focuses on human mobility and transculturality (the coexistence of diverse culture) in archaeological sites, investigating their impact on cultural and political dynamics in ancient populations of pre-Roman Italy.

The project will combine traditional archaeology (the analysis of funerary ritual and material culture) and cutting-edge scientific tools (multi-isotope, aDNA and data analysis) to provide a new understanding and novel instruments for interpreting the dynamic of interaction, formation, and development of emerging complex society in the Mediterranean.

The Etruscans of pre-Roman Italy are optimally suited to exploring this phenomenon, having woven webs of networks across the peninsula and experienced considerable socio-political changes (e.g., the passage from villages to cities) in their formative phases.

TULAR (Etruscan for border) examines principal proto-Etruscan frontier sites, where fluctuation in transculturality is commonplace.

Despite all being initially part of the same network, those sites experience diverse cultural and political outcomes, suggesting variation in network development and offering the optimal dataset for the study.

TULAR will revise the traditional narrative of the Etruscan civilisation, so important for contacts in temperate and Mediterranean Europe, providing a compelling reworking of our understanding of the European Iron Age.

Meanwhile, it will offer a methodological blueprint for studying transculturality and socio-political development globally, framing new directions in research on mobility and its impact on ancient societies.