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2019-04-03 10:02:29   •   ID: 2092

Terramare: Tools made from Animal Hard Materials after the Stone Age

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These are tools made from animal hard organic materials from N-Italy (Bologna region) typical for the Bronze-Age Terramare complex.

While the systematic use of animal hard materials began early during the African MSA, it gained more importance during the Upper Paleolithic-see here 1677 , here 1676 , and here 1100 . In many parts of the world the use of animal hard materials persisted until historical times. Terramare vilages show an exceptional preservation of organic materials.

Terramare, Terramara, or Terremare is a prehistoric complex mainly of the central Po valley in Northern Italy dating to the Middle and Late Bronze Age ca. 1,7-1,1 k.a. cal. BC.

While the antiquarians until ca 1850, thought that Terramare were the funeral or sacrificial areas, used by the Romans or Gauls, it was Luigi Pigorini, one of the fathers of the Italian Prehistory, who in 1862 perceived that the settlements were prehistoric.

The settlements in question are villages, generally quadrangular in plan, surrounded by imposing earthworks and wide moats.

Dwellings were often built on raised platforms in a dry, but sometimes wet environment, supported by pilings. There is currently no commonly accepted explanation for the piles.These settlements were usually situated near water courses.

The Terramare, in spite of local differences, is of typical form; each settlement is trapezoidal, with streets arranged in a quadrangular pattern.

The whole is protected by an earthwork strengthened on the inside by buttresses, and encircled by a wide moat supplied with running water.

Water was a critical resource that was carefully managed. Moats that enclosed most of the sites were built to concentrate and redistribute water to the fields through a dense network of irrigation ditches.

The political system of the Terramare groups remains unknown. There are larger towns ("nodes"), which are seen as centers and smaller, more peripheral one.

Although the Bronze age is a period of increasing mobility, most inhabitants of the Terramare communities, did not move more than 50 km during their lifetime, as indicated by strontium-87 (87Sr) and strontium-86 (86 analysis.

This hold true for males in special, while women moved farer, indicating exogamy within the a broader hinterland radius (Cavazutti et al 2019).

Ceramic and excellent metal products are abundantly are represented in the Archeological records, lithic industries are poor with minor variation but the objects made from animal hard materials (bone, teeth and antler) show by their number and quality, that they played an important role in the activities of daily life.

A large subgroup of this production are the pointed artifacts: They are subdivided into three sub-groups: the first is composed of large tools made either from antler or long bones (mostly split metapodials and the ulnae of deer and cattle): functionally they are often seen as "daggers" (Figure 5 courteously by Werner Hernus).

The second includes small pointed objects, rather common since the late Paleolithic in Europe (needles, awls, double points as seen in Figure 1 and 2).

The third sub-group includes the projectile points which were very common since the early Terramare and quite varied from simple pyramidal, to arrowheads with 2, 3 or even 4 barbs.

An simple stemmed projectile point is displayed in Figures 3 and 4. These weapons are often made of antler (Provenzano 2001).

After 1,1, k.a. BC the Terramare settlemnts were completely abandoned within a short time, and the region remained uninhabited for several Hundred of years.

It is suggested that a period of dry climate affected an environment already stressed by over-exploitation of natural resources by a large demographic increase as convincingly argued by Cremaschi (Cremaschi et al. 2006).

"The present research confirms a multi-causal explanation for the terramare disappearance, in which the climatic component, after the recent discovery in Santa Rosa, appears likely to have played a role. Nevertheless, the main factor still remains the environmental stress induced by anthropogenic over-exploitation of resources and uncontrolled demographic pressure. This interpretation is further supported by the fact that in the areas surrounding the terramare, which were marginal during the apogee, the civilization (specifically the Apennine and the Veneto plain), there was no break in occupation and the local cultures of the Final Bronze age overcame the crisis which was fatal to the terramare". (Cremaschi et al. 2006)



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