Italian Prehistoric Archaeology in the International Context, in Fragmenta 2, 2008, pp. 109-123.

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abstract

The author outlines a short history of the interrelationships between Italian and foreign prehistory scholars in the period going from the unification of Italy to 1945. There was a remarkable season of excavations and research during the second half of the nineteenth century that also helped to create a bond between the Italians and the scholars of other European countries. The beginning of the twentieth century was characterized by a progressive isolation of Italians studying their country’s prehistory. A new phase begins in 1940 with the excavations of Luigi Bernabò Brea in the Arene Candide cave and joint projects of archaeological research and excavations became a reality starting at the end of the Second World War.

the relationship between nationalism and Italian archaeology has been dealt with at length;1 what

is still missing is a study of the complex inter-relationships between Italian pre- and protohistoric archaeologists and their european colleagues, in the period from the unification of Italy to 1945.2

the “science of the illiterates” was the famous aphorism of theodor mommsen (although nowhere to be found in his books or articles!) quoted by giovanni Patroni in his preface to La Preistoria (1937) that labelled prehistoric archaeology. It was mommsen himself who wrote in another famous passage in his introduction to his Römische Geschichte (The History of Rome 1854-1855), how it was to be excluded that in Italy “the human race is more ancient than field cultivation and the fusion of metal”.3 In fact, four years before, giuseppe Scarabelli, “the alpha and omega of Italian prehistory” as he was called by gabriel De mortillet,4 published the first report on palaeolithic tools found in Italy. this publication not only sparked the beginning of a remarkable season of excavations and research, which took place during the second half of the nineteenth century, but also helped to create a bond between the Italians and the scholars of other european countries.

Keywords

Luigi Pigorini, Ugo rellini, Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana, Ingvald Undset, Hendrik Leopold

Italian Prehistoric Archaeology in the International Context

alessandro guidi

1 See among the others, manacorda, ‘Per un’indagine’; manacorda and tamassia, ‘Il piccone’; ‘L’archeologia italiana’; guidi, ‘nationalism’.

2 this topic is only partially dealt within a recent article that I dedicated to the theoretical developments of Italian prehis-tory (guidi, ‘La storia’); different issues developed in that article are however present in my book written on the history of palethnology in 1988 (guidi, Storia), as well as in a fundamental article by renato Peroni (Peroni, ‘Preistoria e Protostoria’).

3 mommsen, Storia, p. I: “Si può escludere che la razza umana sia più antica che la coltivazione del campo e la fusione del metallo”.

4 Desittere, ‘Patria e preistoria’, p. 10.

Fragmenta 2 (2008) pp. 109-123 DOI 10.1484/J.Frag.1.100133

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alessandro guidi . . . .

this paper will give a brief history of the relationship between Italian prehistorians and their european colleagues between the unification of Italy (1860) and the end of the Second World War subdividing into four phases:1. from the Italian unification (taking into account some of

the important events that took place between 1850 and 1860) to 1871, the year of the important international congress in Bologna;

2. 1872-1900;3. 1901-1921;4. the period between World War I and II (1922-1945).

1850-1871recently it has been proposed that Italian palethnology

was born thanks to the long scholarly journey started in 1846 by the turinese geologist Bartolomeo gastaldi and the naturalist Luca toschi, from Imola, a friend of Scarabelli. gastaldi spent three years in Paris where he attended eduard Lartet’s laboratory. another naturalist, Igino Cocchi, beginning in 1852, was in Britain and France and he also established a friendship with Lartet, and the geologist giovanni Capellini, who, between 1858 and 1860, was in Britain, Switzerland, germany and France. Capellini met, among others, Lartet, Charles Lyell and Hugh Falconer.5

at the same time it should be remembered how, in 1846, Count giovanni gozzadini, established in his residence in Bologna a political, scientific and literary circle of european relevance that over the decades would come to be attended, among others, by ernest Chantre, Sir arthur evans, Hans Hildebrand, Oscar montelius, gabriel De mortillet and Heinrich Schliemann. In 1853 gozzadini would become famous for the discovery of a large Iron age cremation burial site on his estate in Villanova.

When gastaldi identified, in 1860, a palafitta site at mercurago, it was two liberal intellectuals gabriel De mortillet and eduard Desor (the latter a student of Ferdinand Keller and both escapees to Switzerland because of their political ideas after the revolution of 1848) who visited the site and persuaded him to carry on with his research. three years later, the same two would help antonio Stoppani in his exploration of the palafitta site on Lake Varese.

If Lartet is considered to have played an important role in the infancy of Italian palethnology, it was in reality a ‘short-circuit’ that started with the palafitta site at mercurago discovery by gastaldi, the support given by Desor and De mortillet, and Lartet’s contacts established with the emilian naturalist Pellegrino Strobel. Strobel had recently foreseen the

5 marabini, ‘Un interscambio culturale’; tarantini, ‘tradizioni e tensioni’; tarantini, ‘Igino Cocchi’.


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. . . . Italian Prehistoric archaeology in the International Context

real nature and structure of the Terramare sites. With Strobel was the then very young Luigi Pigorini, who, was above all else, helped to start that ‘virtuous circle’. this would result, in a very brief time, to a publication by gastaldi, Pellegrini and Strobel and to its subsequent translations into german in 1863 (two letters by the ‘father of palafitte’ Keller6 to Strobel still exist, dated 24 march and 27 november 1862; in the latter he gives advise for this translation) and in 1865 into english.

at the end of 1863 another pioneer, gaetano Chierici, a priest from reggio emilia, became a member of the Istituto di Corrispondenza archeologica7 (Institute of archaeological Correspondence) as an award for his Terramare discoveries. three years later it would be Luigi Pigorini’s turn to become a member at the age of only twenty-five! In 1867 the same Pigorini, along with Sir John Lubbock, wrote a brief paper for the english journal Archaeologia on hut-urns and other objects of Latium.8

the lively intellectual environment, within which the new discipline was developing throughout europe, was evidenced from another fact, apparently of minor influence, but of great significance: the exchange of archaeological artefacts.9 It is thanks to this exchange that today we find in the museum of Parma, english and French bifacials or artefacts coming from Swiss lake dwellings. Similar exchanges are documented in the private collection of the papal guard Luigi Ceselli (in Subiaco, Santa Scolastica, there are artefacts from Saint-acheul, Le moustier and La madeleine) and those belonging to giustiniano nicolucci, who counted Schliemann among his correspondents.

It seems very jarring, in this idyllic climate, the harsh criticism given to one of the first Italian prehistory scholars for one episode. In 1867 Carlo regnoli identified on the surface of the cave site grotta all’Onda remains of ursus speleaeus skulls and ceramic material.10 engrossed by what he believed to be a sensational discovery (the association, and therefore the contemporaneity, of an extinct faunal species and neolithic communities), he immediately informed Lubbock, and sent him an ursus speleaeus skull. With regard to the skull, Lord avebury, in one of his early editions of Pre-Historic Times, laconically wrote: “but I can hardly regard it as being contemporaneous with the pottery and stone axe which were found near it”.11 Despite this small ‘accident’ (which unfortunately occurred once again during an excavation directed by De Stefani between 1911 and 1923, receiving also the authoritative endorsement of Ugo rellini!),12 Italian palethnology was now fully integrated into the european context.

the importance, in this formative phase, of foreign scholars and, at the same time, the crucial role of northern

6 Bernabò Brea and mutti, Le terremare, pp. 271-272.

7 Bernabò Brea and mutti, Le terremare, p. 287.

8 Pigorini and Lubbock, ‘notes’.9 On this particular aspect of the

relationship between Italian and foreign scholars, see: Bernabò Brea and mutti, Le terremare and Skeates, The Collecting of Origins.

10 regnoli, ‘ricerche’.11 Lubbock, Pre-Historic Times,

p. 282.12 On this, and other events linked

to the history of early explorations see guidi, ‘L’esplorazione’.


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Fig. 1: Fifth International Congress of Anthropology & Prehistoric Archaeology, Bologna, 1871.

(morigi govi, tovoli and Dore, In visita, p. 10, fig. 5)

Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4: Fifth International Congress of Anthropology & Prehistoric Archaeology, Bologna, 1871.

(morigi govi, tovoli and Dore, In visita, p. 10, fig. 5)

detail showing J.J.A.Worsaae

detail showing Gabriel De Mortillet

detail showing Luigi Pigorini


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Italy in the shaping of the new discipline, are evident at the first meeting of the Italian Society of natural Sciences, held in La Spezia in 1865. Here it was decided, under the influence of the French academic tradition, to call ‘paleo-etnologia’ (a term later abbreviated in paletnologia and still present in Italian academia) the study of prehistoric antiquity. In that very occasion, De mortillet solemnly proposed the creation of an International Congress of anthropology and Prehistoric archaeology, the first meeting of which took place in neuchâtel the following year. the fifth of these congresses, held in Bologna in 1871, was somehow the triumph of Italian prehistory: in the group photograph, taken on this occasion (Fig. 1) one can see J. J. a. Worsaae (Fig. 2), De mortillet (Fig. 3) and obviously in the centre of the picture Luigi Pigorini (Fig. 4) who, due to the success of the Congress, became a member of several european scientific academies, in particular the Danish one, together with Strobel.13

1872-1900 to Chierici we owe the account of the Italian

participation in congresses after Bologna.14 If, in 1872 (in Brussels, where Chierici was awarded a medal)15 and 1874 (Stockholm) Italy counted few scholars among its delegation, in 1876 at the congress in Budapest the number of Italian speakers was twenty-two. together with the speakers at the previous congress, Pigorini, Capellini, giuseppe Bellucci, also the tireless excavator of the San Francesco hoard and of various Felsinean burial sites, antonio Zannoni attended.

Shortly after, the term ‘eneolithic’ newly coined by Italian scholars (in particular Pigorini and Orsi) entered the prehistory vocabulary, to be used throughout the continent. this influence on the language of the discipline has never occurred again in its history. these data may suffice to point out the ‘state of blessing’ experienced by Italian palethnology between 1871 and the end of the nineteenth century. In 1882, the norwegian Ingvald Undset wrote: “We, prehistory archaeologists beyond the alps (sic!) follow with great interest the work undertaken in Italy in order to establish the phases of primitive civilizations, especially for what concerns the industry, crafts, their artefacts, which classic archaeology, until a few years ago, did not take into proper consideration”.16 moreover, in europe, the opinio communis held Italy to be a favoured place for the study of the transition between prehistory and history on the continent.

When in 1875 Pigorini founded, along with Strobel and Chierici, the journal Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana,17 Keller promptly sent Strobel an enthusiastic letter.18 In the


14 Chierici, ‘Congresso’; Chierici, ‘La Paletnologia’. Interesting are also references to different discussions which took place at the congress in Budapest, in particular the one investigating the possibility of an Italian Copper age.


16 Undset, ‘relazioni’, p. 43: “noi archeologi preistorici d’oltr’alpi (sic) seguiamo col maggiore interesse il lavoro che si fa in Italia per deter-minare le varie fasi della civiltà primitiva, specialmente per ciò che concerne l’industria, i mestieri, i loro prodotti, di cui l’archeologia classica, fino a qualche anno fa, non tenne molto conto”.

17 also under the influence of the French journal Materiaux pour l’histoire positive et philosophique de l’homme.



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following years, demonstrating the importance which was given to the journal, De mortillet (1876),19 Desor (1879),20 Ingvald Undset (1882 and 1883),21 Léon goüin (1884),22 Julius naue (1896, upon request of the “remarkable friend Prof. Dr. Paolo Orsi”),23 Friedrich von Duhn (1889),24 eugen Petersen (1897)25 and georg Karo (1898),26 all contributed articles.

as in the former period, archaeological artefacts exchanges continued: finds from Danish prehistoric middens and other sites, but also acquisitions began of numerous Italian artefacts on behalf of the Parisian museum of St. germain en Laye and of the British museum. as regards private collections, it is worthwhile to mention both Concezio rosa, with his donations of flint and ceramic artefacts from the Vibrata valley to Paris and toulouse and nicolucci, who not only sold archaeological artefacts as far away as Harvard but also received trojan artefacts from Schliemann in 1876.

at the centre of these studies is and will remain for nearly half century, Luigi Pigorini. He was already the uncontested dominus of Italian prehistory, if one excludes the group of naturalists who founded in Florence the archivio per l’antropologia e l’etnologia (archive for anthropology and ethnology), following the foundation of the national museu m in rome (1876) and receiving the chair of palethnology at the University of rome in 1877.It is in this period that the scholar from modena perfects his strategy, gradually marginalizing the great majority of informants and local enthusiasts who constituted the heart of the discipline during its pioneering period, and thus creates a group of faithful scholars. In the following years, it also has to be pointed out, the continuous evolution of the so called ‘Pigorini’s theory’, outlined in 1875 by Chierici and further developed by Wolfgang Helbig, another foreigner exceptionally integrated in the Italian world with his Die Italiker in der Po-Ebene (1879), came to realization with Pigorini’s active help.

according to renato Peroni,27 beginning in 1879 Pigorini intensified his contacts with scholars from central and northern europe and in 1882 the first article by Undset was published in the Bullettino (an account of a conference held at the Istituto di Corrispondenza archeologica that constituted an enthusiastic stand on the importance of the Italic people in the development of proto-historic europe).28 this stand adhered ideologically to the triple alliance (further perfected, notice the coincidence of dates 1879 and 1882!) among Italy, austria and Prussia.

not surprising is the tone used in the obituary for Undset (1893), attributed to the editing board of the Bullettino, but probably written by Pigorini: “few among Italian

19 De mortillet, ‘ancora delle selci’.20 Desor, ‘La pierre’. this is a letter to

Pigorini, in which Desor describes in detail and critically discusses a rock carving on a stone from Liguria; the discovery, announced in 1879, is due to his frequentation, for health reasons, of the martime alps area, in Liguria.

21 Undset, ‘relazioni’; Undset, ‘Se la fibula’; Undset, ‘antichità laziali’.

22 goüin, ‘Sur une grotte’.23 naue, ‘armi italiane’.24 Duhn von, ‘Una visita’.25 Petersen, ‘Comparazioni’.26 Karo, ‘Cenni sulla cronologia’; this

is one of the first critical article against montelius’ ‘high’ chro-nology.

27 Peroni, ‘Preistoria e protostoria’, pp. 32-33.

28 Undset, ‘relazioni’.


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archaeologists, none among foreigners have rendered to the palethnology of our country, as concerns the early metal period, a service so great as that contributed by Undset”.29

the polemical character of Pigorini was inexhaustible. In 1886 (the year he received an honorary degree at Heidelberg)30 he began to criticize who rightly identified the presence of Italian palaeolithic facies (even though still only the Upper Palaeolithic) in a paper with the eloquent title Sulla mancanza nell’Italia delle antichità dell’età della pietra, periodo delle renne (On the Absence in Italy of the Old Stone Age, Reindeer Period).31 two years later he continued the debate with adriano De mortillet.32 In 1897, in a lively exchange with Petersen, (always from the papers in the Bullettino) he discusses the analogy between aegean and Italian iconographic motifs during the Bronze and early Iron ages.33

Of all the debates, however, the most delicate one regards the famous selci strane (strange flints) of Breonio, published as authentic artefacts in those years by De Stefani. In 1885, De mortillet openly argued that they should be considered fakes, immediately attracting the severe and convinced reply about their authenticity from Pigorini. Only twenty years later Seton Karr would have proved that the patina found on the artefacts had been faked and would bring to light that the workers, to supplement their salary, used to manufacture such enigmatic tools. It was only in the 1930s (and in any case after Pigorini’s death) that the definitive verdict came also from the Italians.34

another debate worth remembering is that beginning towards the end of the century between one of the tireless explorators of the roman countryside, michele Stefano De rossi and Heinrich Schliemann.35 Schliemann published in german and english journals some papers in which he contested the theory proposed by De rossi (and endorsed by giuseppe Ponzi and Pigorini) that burials in the Latium were to be found under the peperino stratum, a corroborated fact in De rossi’s view based on data that “the last eruptions of the alban volcanic system had taken place only during the first centuries of rome”.36 Schliemann, invited by De rossi, undertook a small excavation at Vigna meluzzi (20 m x 1 m), and since he found potsherds in the strata above the peperino layer, declared that his hypothesis was correct. De rossi however, confirmed the evidence of those who found burials under the peperino layer. even though it is difficult to agree with De rossi, to his aid came a series of findings which only recently has been taken into consideration: the discovery of vast levels of lahar (volcanic mud), in some cases dated to that historic period, in the area in between rome and the Castelli romani.37

29 redazione, ‘Undset’: “Pochi fra gli archeologi italiani, nessuno fra gli stranieri hanno reso alla paletno-logia del nostro Paese, per ciò che concerne le prime età dei metalli, servigi tanto notevoli quanto quelli dell’Undset”.

30 amelung, ‘Luigi Pigorini’.31 Pigorini, ‘Sulla mancanza’.32 Pigorini, ‘Cuspidi di selce’.33 Pigorini, ‘Comparazioni’.34 regarding the long polemic and its

associated bibliography see Longo, Chelidonio, ‘Selci strane’; Salzani, ‘conclusione della vicenda’.

35 De rossi, ‘Sugli studi’.36 De rossi, ‘Sugli studi’, p. 187.37 Funicello et al., ‘L’attività recente’.


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1901-1920 With the beginning of the 1900s the strong link with

the european environment started to weaken: the most serious event (denoting an increasingly provincial mentality) is the foolish polemic by Pigorini and his followers against the Florentine group of naturalists led by arturo Carlo Blanc and, in particular, aldobrandino mochi, ‘guilty’ of having imagined an Italian palaeolithic sequence similar to the French one.38 this would be the origin of an increasingly bitter split that would become more profound during Fascism.

It should also be remembered that the first real synthesis on pre- and protohistoric materials and their chronology, appeared in volumes of which the most important are published between the end of the 1800s and 1904 by a foreigner: montelius.39 the degree to which his ‘high’ chronological system was accepted in Italy is showed by the editorial choice of the Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana to publish, in 1904, an article by montelius’ rival georg Karo, advocate of the ‘low’ chronology.40

In these years few scholars stand out, only two of them are well known internationally: Paolo Orsi and, in particular, giacomo Boni. much has been written on the unique characteristics of Boni: a great archaeologist, an atypical Italian, well-known for his international contacts, from apollinaire to ruskin, the latter being the english architect with whom he established a strong relationship. It is no accident that Boni was to become an honorary fellow of the London Society of antiquaries in 1900.41

In addition there were other Italian specialists appreciated abroad: the emblematic figure of the anthropologist giuseppe Sergi, called to become part of the international équipe investigating the fourth millennium bc settlement of anau in turkmenistan, under the direction of the american geologist raphael W. Pumpelly and the german archaeologist Hubert Schmidt, student of Wilhelm Dörpfeld. During this period there were also the deaths of two german scholars committed to Italian prehistory, rudolf Virchow42 and Wolfgang Helbig.43

as in the previous phases, various collections — such as the civic museums in milan, reorganized by Pompeo Castelfranco, and the collections organized by Domenico ridola — contain foreign materials. acquisitions of Italian findings on behalf of the museum of St. germain and the British museum continue as well.

1921-1945 renato Peroni defined the numerous obituaries

for Pigorini (who died in 1925) as “dull for their verbose vacuity”.44 It is perhaps more interesting to read those that

38 On further developments on this polemic see guidi, ‘L’esplorazione’.

39 montelius, La civilisation primitive.40 Karo, ‘tombe arcaiche’.41 rushfort, ‘giacomo Boni’.42 redazione, ‘Virchow’.43 redazione, ‘Helbig’.44 Peroni, ‘Preistoria e Protostoria’,

p. 55: “squallide per verbose vacuità”.


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appeared in the foreign journals, Walther amelung wrote in Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts and defined Pigorini (in Italian) as a “master of Science and Italian spirit” and mentions the poignant obituary written by Pigorini for von Duhn the previous year.45 marcelin Boule pays tribute in L’Anthropologie, where despite profuse praise, the quarrel regarding the palaeolithic is frankly alluded to (Boule sides with mochi); it is also pointed out how Pigorini never “left a work of synthesis, an overall volume on Italian prehistory”.46 astonishing, from this point of view, is the homage made to Pigorini written in the same journal by Vaufrey, who takes advantage of the occasion to remind everyone about the commemoration in which antonielli, provisional director of the museum, alluded to the “stone [added to the] imposing building of Italian Prehistory” by the activity of the Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris, namely his own.

also in 1925 giacomo Boni died, the obituaries dedicated to him, in the Römische Mitteilungen47 and in The Antiquaries Journal48 were as moving and detailed as those written for Pigorini. In the english journal in particular, gordon mcneil rushfort, a classic archaeologist who not only knew Boni and his excavations well, but was also the director of the British School at rome at the beginning of the 1900s, wrote: the name of Boni “is one of three which will always be associated with a series of epoch-making excavations in our own time — Dr. Schliemann with troy and mycenae, Sir arthur evans with Crete, and Boni with the Forum and Palatine at rome”.49

In comparison to two giants like Pigorini and Boni, the other exponents of the protohistory school in the 1920s, such as giovanni Pinza (with regards to whom Peroni rightly reminds the terrible pages against the typo-chronology by montelius and the possibility to identify a palaeolithic facies in Italy) or even Patroni, really appear insignificant.

Within the roman school, the sole exponent worth of interest, even though he had his ups and downs (especially as regards his field work) is Ugo rellini, successor to Pigorini’s chair and the ‘soul’ of almost all issues of the Bullettino during the Fascist period.

Despite the lazy defence of the Pigorinian orthodoxy, evident in the attempt to identify improbable lingering into the neolithic of palaeolithic facies, the activity of rellini is marked by a cautious willingness to renew Italian prehistoric studies.

rellini, along with raffaello Battaglia and antonio taramelli, takes part, towards the end of the 1920s, in international congresses in Berlin and Barcelona, and with a larger group of colleagues (nello Puccioni, the geologists giuseppe De Lorenzo and geremia D’erasmo, goffredo

45 amelung, ‘Luigi Pigorini’.46 Boule, ‘Luigi Pigorini’.47 amelung, ‘giacomo Boni’.48 rushfort, ‘giacomo Boni’.49 rushfort, ‘giacomo Boni’,

p. 441.


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Bendinelli and Pericle Ducati) to London in 1932. this last congress marks the birth of the International Congress of Pre- and Protohistoric Sciences50 where many brief accounts on european and extra-european prehistory51 were given. Certainly thanks to his stimuli, papers by various foreign scholars are presented: such as Johannes Sundwall (1928),52 giorgio Buchner, then at the very start of his long Italian experience (1936-1937),53 grga novak (1940)54 and, in particular the Dutch archaeologist Hendrik Leopold, author of numerous articles published between 1924 and 1934.55

the same Leopold, together with rellini and elise Baumgaertel, the latter an egyptologist who worked in Italy during the first half of the 1930s, are the main protagonists of a series of explorations, which culminated in the excavation of the famous Bronze age site of Cave manaccore in the gargano, perhaps the first joint prehistory mission of a certain importance between Italian and foreign scholars.56

Immune to the isolation and provincialism which affected Italian palethnological research in this period was the group of palaeolithic scholars with a naturalist background, in particular Paolo graziosi, gian alberto and alberto Carlo Blanc,57 with whom often worked raymond Vaufrey, author of the first book on the Italian palaeolithic in 1928,58 and the exponents of the then emerging etruscology.

In the photograph published herewith, taken by the young ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli during the first national etruscan Congress in 1926, one can see some of the german scholars, in particular amelung, Fritz Weege and von Duhn (Fig. 5). to this last scholar was entrusted the overview of the orientalizing period at the international congress (1927), whereas the Villanovian period, on the same occasion, was presented by randall mcIver.59 among the etruscologists prevailed a cultural-historic formation; as in the case of Pia Laviosa Zambotti, to whom we owe a long study on the Italian neolithic that appeared in the Bullettino between 1939 and 1940. It represents one of the few Italian articles of the period denoting a wide knowledge of european bibliography.60

In general, unfortunately, the period between the two World Wars is dominated by works of synthesis on Italian prehistory, written by foreign scholars: among others, the already mentioned volume by Vaufrey on the Palaeolithic, the first volume of Italische Gräberkunde, on funerary customs in the protohistoric period by von Duhn (fondly dedicated to Pigorini) in 1923,61 Villanovans and Early Etruscans (1924) and The Iron Age in Italy (1927) by randall mcIver,62 Der geometrische Stil in Italien by Åke Åkerström63 and Die älteren italischen Fibeln by Sundwall,64 both published in 1943. a special

50 rellini and redazione, ‘La palet-nologia nei Congressi’; rellini, ‘Il congresso preistorico’. the associa-tion then established in London, would have become in 1954, and is still called Unione Internazio-nale delle Scienze Preistoriche e Protostoriche.

51 Please see Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana 56 (1936-37), pp. 129-148 and 149-153; 57 (1938), pp. 57-60; 83-90; 100-101; 101-102.

52 Sundwall, ‘nuovi cenni’. Here, in the same way as in the volume published three years before on the same subject, starts the historic Swedish tendency, i.e. to a “low” chronology (see for instance the eighth century bc dating for hut urns), which continued until the last decades of the twentieth century.

53 Buchner, ‘nota preliminare’.54 novak, ‘Caverna con ceramica’.55 Leopold, ‘Il “mundus”’; ‘La sede

originaria’; ‘Le sale del museo Preistorico’; ‘L’età del bronzo’; ‘Influenze reciproche’; ‘Il ripostiglio di Piediluco’.

56 Baumgaertel, ‘Scavo stratigrafico’; rellini, Baumgaertel and Leopold, ‘Secondo rapporto’.

57 See the brief contribution by Blanc and Blanc, ‘I Loess’, in the 1938 Bullettino.

58 Vaufrey, Le Paléolithique Italien.59 news reported in ashby, ‘three

Italian archaeology Congresses’.60 Laviosa-Zambotti, ‘La ceramica

della Lagozza’.61 Duhn von, Italische Gräberkunde. See

also the fondly written obituary dedicated to von Duhn by Paolo Orsi (Orsi, ‘von Duhn’).

62 randall-mcIver, Villanovans; randall-mcIver, The Iron Age.

63 Åkerström, Der geometrische Stil.64 Sundwall, Die älteren italischen

Fibeln.


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Fig. 5 First National Congress of Etruscan Studies, Florence, 1926. (Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, p. 67, fig. 126)

Fig. 6 First Congress of Mediterranean Pre- and Protohistory, Florence, 1950.

(tarantini, ‘Dal Fascismo alla repubblica’, p. 60, fig. 6)


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case is represented by the well-known volume on Terramare sites by gösta Säflund in 1939,65 based on the criticism of Pigorini’s theories which goes as far as to refuse the character of embanked settlements excavated in the previous century: it would have taken another half of a century to understand that, on the contrary, the theories by Chierici, Pigorini and Strobel on the Terramare were overall valid.

In such a critical situation for our prehistoric studies, the only real novelty comes in 1940, with the start of the excavations at arene Candide by an archaeologist with a Classics background: Luigi Bernabò Brea, with the fundamental help of the naturalist Luigi Cardini. to what extent Bernabò Brea knew the european literature and how he viewed it, is shown by the famous reply he gave several years later to glyn Daniel who asked him why he had dedicated La Sicilia prima dei Greci to Vere gordon Childe: “Because I did not understand european prehistory until I read The Dawn of European Civilization and The Danube in Prehistory”.66

the long and complex interweaving of experiences that Italian prehistory scholars have in common with their colleagues of other european countries, was transformed starting in the 1950s, into an effective cooperation and into the birth of several joint research projects. the most fitting conclusion is this beautiful photograph, taken at a conference on mediterranean prehistory held in Florence in 1950. the expressions, attitudes, the cheerful mix of men and women promise another climate, that of international cooperation, and by now, that of modernity (Fig. 6).

65 Säflund, Le terremare delle province.66 Daniel, ‘editorial’.


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Åkerström, Åke, Der geometrische Stil in Italien:

archäologische Grundlagen der frühesten historischen

Zeit Italiens (Lund: C.W.K. gleerup; Leipzig:

O. Harrassowitz, 1943).

amelung, Walther, ‘Luigi Pigorini’, Mitteilungen des

Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts 40 (1925), III-V.

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