List of ancient peoples of Italy

This list of ancient peoples living in Italy summarises groupings of peoples existing in Italy before and during the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy. Many of the names are either scholarly inventions or exonyms assigned by the ancient writers of works in ancient Greek and Latin.

Ethnolinguistic map of Italy in the Iron Age, before the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy

In regard to the specific names of particular ancient Italian tribes and peoples, the time-window in which historians know the historical ascribed names of ancient Italian peoples mostly falls into the range of about 750 BC (at the legendary foundation of Rome) to about 200 BC (in the middle Roman Republic), the time range in which most of the written documentation first exists of such names and prior to the nearly complete assimilation of Italian peoples into Roman culture.

Nearly all of these peoples and tribes spoke Indo-European languages: Italics, Celts, Ancient Greeks, and tribes likely occupying various intermediate positions between these language groups. On the other hand, some Italian peoples (such as the Rhaetians, Camuni, Etruscans) likely spoke non- or pre-Indo-European languages. In addition, peoples speaking languages of the Afro-Asiatic family, specifically the largely Semitic Phoenicians and Carthaginians, settled and colonized some coastal parts of Italy (particularly in insular Italy in western and southern Sardinia and western Sicily).[1]

Speakers of non-Indo-European languages
See also: Prehistoric Italy
Ancient Sardinian and Corsican tribes described by the Romans.

Scholars believe - though sometimes on the basis of scanty evidence - that the following peoples spoke non-Indo-European languages. Some of them were Pre-Indo-Europeans or Paleo-Europeans while, with regard to some others, Giacomo Devoto proposed the definition of Peri-Indo-European (i.e. everything that has hybrid characters between Indo-European and non-Indo-European).[2]

Sardinians
Further information: History of Sardinia, Pre-Nuragic Sardinia, List of Nuragic tribes, Nuragic civilization, Sherden, Sea Peoples, and Prehistory of Corsica

Tyrrhenians
Further information: Etruscan civilization, Etruscan society, and Etruscan cities

The Tyrrhenians were the Etruscans and their linguistic relatives.

Terracotta statue of a young woman, late 4th–early 3rd century B.C., Etruscan Terracotta
Etruscan terracotta head
Tarquinia Tomb of the Leopards

Others (classification uncertain)

Speakers of Indo-European languages

Italo-Celtic
Main article: Italo-Celtic

Italic and Celtic languages are commonly grouped together on the basis of features shared by these two branches and no others. This could imply that they are descended from a common ancestor and/or Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic developed in close proximity over a long period of time.

Italic
Further information: Italic peoples and List of ancient Italic peoples

Speakers of Italic languages included:

The map shows the most important archaeological sites of Sicily related to pre-Hellenic cultures, as well as the possible extent of the cultures of the Elymians, Sicani and Sicels.
Samnite soldiers from a tomb frieze in Nola 4th century BC.
The Warrior of Capestrano, a South Picene statue

Celts
Further information: Lepontii and Cisalpine Gaul

The Celts of the Italian peninsula included,

Map of Cisalpine Gaul showing in blue the approximate distributions of Celtic populations in the area during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.

Ligures
A reproduction of a Ligure helmet

The Ligures, who may have spoken Pre-Indo-European[35] or an Indo-European language,[36] were:

Greeks
Further information: Magna Graecia
Ancient Greek colonies and their dialect groupings in Southern Italy (the so-called "Magna Graecia")

Sometimes referred in ancient sources as Pelasgi,[37] the Ancient Greeks of the Italian peninsula included,

Fresco of dancing Peucetian women in the Tomb of the Dancers in Ruvo di Puglia, 4th-5th century BC

Others (classification uncertain)

Pre-Roman conquest archeological cultures
Main article: Prehistoric Italy

The specific identities or names of the tribes or groups of peoples that practiced these pre-Roman archeological cultures are mostly unknown. The posited existence of these archeological cultures is based on archeological assemblages of artifacts that share common traits and are found within a certain region and originate within a certain prehistoric period. Therefore, many of these archeological cultures may not necessarily correspond to a specific group of ancient people and, in fact, may have been shared among various groups of ancient peoples. The extent to which an archeological culture is representative of a particular cohesive ancient group of people is open for debate; many of these cultures may be the product of a single ancient Italian tribe or civilization (e.g. Latial culture), while others may have been spread among different groups of ancient Italian peoples and even outside of Italy. For example, Latial culture is believed to be the product specifically of the Ancient Latin tribe; the Canegrate culture and Golasecca culture have been associated with various ancient proto-Celtic, Celtic and Ligure tribes including the Lepontii, Orobii, and Insubres, while other archeological cultures may have been present among multiple groups throughout and beyond the Italian peninsula.

Incineration and inhumation in Iron Age Italy

Neolithic

Copper Age

Bronze Age
Nuraghe Santu Antine in Torralba
Archaeological finds of Canegrate culture

Iron Age

Genetics
See also: Bell Beaker culture § Genetics, Urnfield culture § Genetics, Hallstatt culture § Genetics, Celts § Genetics, Etruscan civilization § Genetic research, and Latins (Italic tribe) § Genetics
Detail of fresco from the Lucanian tomb, 4th century BC

A genetic study published in Science in November 2019 examined the remains of six Latin males buried near Rome between 900 BC and 200 BC. They carried the paternal haplogroups R-M269, T-L208, R-311, R-PF7589 and R-P312 (two samples), and the maternal haplogroups H1aj1a, T2c1f, H2a, U4a1a, H11a and H10. A female from the preceding Proto-Villanovan culture carried the maternal haplogroups U5a2b.[41] These examined individuals were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of ca. 25-35% steppe ancestry.[42] Overall, the genetic differentiation between the Latins, Etruscans and the preceding proto-villanovan population of Italy was found to be insignificant.[43]

See also
Ancient history
Preceded by prehistory
Near East
Europe
Horn of Africa
List
Central Asia
East Asia
South Asia
Northern America
Mesoamerica
Andes
Caribbean
West Africa and Central Africa
Southeast Asia and Oceania
See also

References
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  2. Giacomo Devoto, Gli antichi Italici, Firenze, Vallecchi, 1931.
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  12. Etruria campana
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  17. Piceni popolo d'Europa, Vv.Aa., Edizioni De Luca, Roma, 1999, p. 139
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  25. "L'alfabeto umbro su Omniglot.com". 16 January 2009.
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  28. Livy, Ab urbe condita, 2.22
  29. Strabo (1917). "Book V, Chapter 4, Section 2". Geography.
  30. G. Micali, Storia degli antichi popoli italiani, Tomo II, Firenze 1832, p. 24.
  31. Kruta, Venceslas (1991). The Celts. Thames and Hudson. pp. 52–56.
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  33. "LinguistList: Lepontic". Archived from the original on 2011-12-22. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
  34. John T. Koch (ed.) Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia ABC-CLIO (2005) ISBN 978-1-85109-440-0
  35. "Liguri". Enciclopedie on line. Treccani.it (in Italian). Rome: Treccani -Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. 2011. Le documentazioni sulla lingua dei Liguri non ne permettono una classificazione linguistica certa (preindoeuropeo di tipo mediterraneo? Indoeuropeo di tipo celtico?).
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  37. Herodotus, Histories, ΚΛΕΙΩ 1.56.2: μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα ἐφρόντιζε ἱστορέων τοὺς ἂν Ἑλλήνων δυνατωτάτους ἐόντας προσκτήσαιτο φίλους. ἱστορέων δὲ εὕρισκε Λακεδαιμονίους τε καὶ Ἀθηναίους προέχοντας, τοὺς μὲν τοῦ Δωρικοῦ γένεος, τοὺς δὲ τοῦ Ἰωνικοῦ. ταῦτα γὰρ ἦν τὰ προκεκριμένα, ἐόντα τὸ ἀρχαῖον τὸ μὲν Πελασγικόν
    Translation: Then he set out to examine who among the "Greeks" were the strongest, whom he could make friends with. And searching, he found that the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians were distinguished, the former among the Dorians, the latter among the Ionians. Because these nations were the best known, being in the old days the last Pelasgian
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  42. Antonio et al. 2019, p. 2.
  43. Antonio et al. 2019, p. 3.

Bibliography
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