History Of Italy

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THE HISTORY OF ITALY

Italy, history of since earliest times the history of Italy has been influenced by cultural and political divisions resulting from the peninsula's disparate geography and by circumstances that made Italy the scene of many of Europe's most important struggles for power.
EARLY ITALY
Recent excavations throughout Italy and Sicily have revealed evidence of human activity during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. By the beginning of the Neolithic period (c.5000 BC), the small communities of hunters of earlier times had been replaced by agricultural settlements, with some stock breeding and widespread use of stone implements and pottery. Painted vessels that seem to have been influenced by contemporary styles in Greece have been found at Castellaro Vecchio on the island of Lipari.
The Bronze Age
By 2000 BC new immigrants from the east had introduced metalworking into southern Italy and Sicily; the northern Italian Polada culture of the same period left evidence of strong links with cultures north of the Alps. During the Bronze Age (c.1800-1000 BC), much of central and southern Italy had a unified culture known as the Apennine, characterized by large agricultural and pastoral settlements; on the southeastern coast and in Sicily evidence indicates trading contacts with the Mycenaeans. After c.1500 BC, in the Po Valley to the north, the terramara culture--with its villages constructed on wooden piles, its advanced techniques of bronze working, and its cremation rites--rose to prominence. By the time of the introduction of iron into Italy (c.1000 BC), regional variations were well established.
The Etruscans
The diverse cultural patterns of the early Iron Age were further complicated in the late 8th century BC by the arrival of Greek colonizers in the south and in Sicily and by the appearance of the ETRUSCANS in central Italy and the Po Valley. Historians generally agree that Etruscan culture was the resu...