The main Bronze Age culture of the Italian peninsula, lasting from c2000 to c800 BC. It is marked by its distinctive pottery, dark and highly burnished, and decorated with incised and punctuated bands. The handles are elaborate and include tongue, homed and crestéd types. It is often claimed that the economy was mainly pastoral and certainly many sites, especially those in the Apennine mountains themselves, yield many sheep and goat bones. Other sites, for example, Luni and Narce, show evidence of a more mixed "economy. Burials are rare, except in the southeast. Bronze tools, though in use, are rarely found.
The Macmillan dictionary of archaeology, Ruth D. Whitehouse, 1983Copied