Little Humankind's History

ITALIAN PENNINSULA

La Ceramica Campaniforme che costituisce nell’ambito europeo e mediterraneo occidentale l’ultimo orizzonte dell’età del Rame (-2500/-2300). [Bell Beakers were also present in North Italy].

ITALY: The Neolitic is represented by Molfeta, Stentiello and Remedello (in the North); in the Bronze Age appears Terramare with lacustre villages in then north and extra-terramaricoles in the Center and South.

BRONZE techniques spread from the Baden culture (Hungary, Czech rep., Austria) to the Krain Culture and Vucedol Culture, the last spread it to Italy (Remedello and Rinaldone).

Plusieurs tribus issues de la culture de Vucedol partiront envahir l'Italie. Ces hommes, appelés "italiotes" ou "italiques", seront les ancètres directs des latins (Romains et Falisques) et des osco-ombriens: - Proto-Italiotes de Remedello en Italie du nord et Suisse du sud (-2300 à - 2100): guerriers porteurs de poignards triangulaires en cuivre, utilisant des tasses incisées ou impressionnées et des pandeloques en forme de double-spirale en cuivre. ils enterraient les hommes sur le coté gauche, tête à l'ouest, et les femmes sur le dos, tête à l'est. - Vers -1850 de nouvelles tribus italiotes arrivent en Italie du nord. elles utilisent des poteries de type Vucedol (tasses noires non décorées) et fondent la civilisation de Polada [Terramare].

-1800/-900 Proto-Italics from the northeast; beginning the Terramare culture.

-2000 Italic tribes come to Italy. But there is little evidence of that, so that it is said that these peoples could be relative to later Picenes who lived in Italy in historical times, or to Ligurians who inhabited the north of the peninsula, or to Sicelians who then were found in Sicily.

IDEA: by the linguistic map of Italy of the Republican epoch, it seems that Italics were present in the mountains where Messapics got the Adriatic coasts, so that it would mean that the arival of the Italics was before to that of the Messapics. As doubtly the Italics would have sparsed the north, some population might have expelled or dissociated them, may be the Tyrrhenians that traditionally were thought to have occupied the Po Bassin and the Toscana (around -1200).

The Bronze Age in Italy (from -1800 to -900) is divided between Polada (Terramaricoli), who lived in raised huts around lake or coastal lands, and incinerated dead; and the Apennine Culture (Extramaricoli), being semi-nomadic and inhabiting in the hills and mountains. Contact between the Apennines and the Terramaras existed and the Terramaras may have introduced cremation to the Apennines who traditionally practiced inhumation

Le char à ses premières attestations en Italie remontent au IIIe et au IIe millénaire, et viennent toutes de la plaine du Pô centrale (dans les Terremare à Castione XIIIe siècle av.J.C.) . Les exemples de Villanove sont plus tardifs.

IDEA: The chariots and the cremations point to an IE filiation of the carriers of Terramare. In the other side, the Extramaricoles or Apennines would represent survivals od ancient Neolithic populations.

Euganei were settled among the Raethic Lepontians [as survival populations ?]; their core nucleus was in the Tirol.

It is from this people that the group of volcanic hills between Padua and Verona derive their present name of Colli Euganei or the "Euganean Hills." (Pliny).

We have no indication of the national affinities of the Euganeans. Ancient writers appear to have regarded them as a distinct race from the Veneti and from the Rhaetians, as well as from the Gauls who subsequently invaded this part of Italy; but from what stock they proceeded we have no account at all. The notion of their Greek descent (Plin. l. c.) was evidently a mere etymological fancy, based upon the supposed derivation of their name from "eugeneis", the well-born.

They are also of opinion that the inhabitants of the Grecian Alps are descended from a portion of the Greeks of his army, and that the Euganeans, being sprung from an origin so illustrious, thence took their name. Pliny

IDEA: The Lygurians, being their ancient neighbours, would point to a possible ethnic affinity, since the Sicules were Pelasgians, and these expelled the Euganei. Otherwise the Euganei would represent those IE peoples that occupied north Italy in the Bronze Age, the Terrmaricoles or Polada Culture, originated from Vucedol. Please note that the assigned original area of occupation of such Euganei corresponds mainly with the area of occupation of Terramare...

The Bronze Age in Italy is noteworthy for its uniformity in material culture. Its homogeneity has led to its being referred to as the Apennine Culture. However, this uniformity in material may best be explained through trade and cultural transmission over a long period, and should not therefore be misconstrued as resulting from any ethnic homogeneity, nor that there was a common language throughout the Italian peninsula in this period. [...] Late bronze Age communities begin to erect stone defensive walls.

-1600/-1400 Matera Culture in Apulia and NE Sicily, first area in south Italy to show Indo-European influences.

Nella tarda età del bronzo (XIII - XII) in Italia centromeridionale vi sono tombe a inumazione e tombe collettive a camera, o piccoli nuclei di inumazioni individuali con ricchi corredi, spesso caratterizzate dalla presenza di armi.

IDEA: Such burial types are more characteristics of non-Indoeurtopean or Bascoid/Caucasian/Cardial peoples.

During the Bronze Age, to the northeast of the Italian peninsula pastoralists begin to appear between 1200-1180 BCE [as Urnfield peoples], later moving into the peninsula either across the Alps or the northern Adriatic. Old theories based on linguistics alone suggested the pastoralists were Italics who came in two mass migrations across the Alps; the first by Western Italics like Latins and Sicels, and the second by Eastern Italics such as the Osco-Umbrians. But the archaeological evidence suggests a slower infiltration by small bands of diverse people, intermingling with the native Bronze Age cultures. By the ninth century there are three distinctive Iron Age cultures in the north: 1. The Golasecca culture of Lombardy, Piedmont, and Liguria had an affinity with the Halstatt cultures north of the Alps. The Ligurians were an inhumation culture, except during the Golasecca period when cremation was practiced for at least a warrior class. 2. The Este culture in northeastern Italy extended further east to Zagreb, and as far north as the Danube, and traded with Halstatt peoples further north, flourished from the ninth to third centuries. Their main cremation cemeteries in Italy are found at Padua, Vicenza, Oppeano, Veronese, and Este. By the time of the arrival of the Romans in the area, the Este culture can be identified with the Italic Venetic-speaking people. 3. Villanova.

IDEA: That would point to an Italo-Celtic filiation of the Venetics.

Ais appears to be pan-italic, as it is present in Umbrian esono- (divine), Oscan aisusis and Venetian aisu (god). This is generally interpreted as a borrowing from Etruscan, but this is unlikely, since this word appears also in a Gaulish inscription from Paris as Esus.

The territory of north-eastern Italy and the adjacent regions of modern Slovenia and Austria used to be inhabited in Roman times by the tribes of Veneti.

Venetic is the language of the Iron Age Este culture. There are over 200 inscriptions, though none over ten words long, written from the VI to the I century BC in an Indo-European language. The inscriptions use an Etruscan-like alphabet.

Venetic is believed to be a single group very close to Italic, Illyrian and Celtic. Obvious are contacts with Etruscan and maybe Rhaetian.

IDEA: As Etruscans were colonizing the Venetic neighbour regions around -600, and as the Venetic alphabet is clearly based in that of the Etruscans, it seems quite evident that high culture was debt to Etruscans.

Example inscription: "mego zontasto sainatei reitiai porai egeotora aimoi ke louzerophos" (in Latin would be: me donavit sanatrici Reitiae / Rectia bonae Egetora pro Aemo et -que liberis) meaning "Egetora gave me to the Good Reitia the Healer on behalf of Aemus and the children".

The reflection of Indo-European stops is very similar [in Venetic] to Latin and Illyrian - voiced aspirates disappear. New spirants f, h, ts appear, the Indo-European labiovelar *KW was preserved.

Golasecca with iron and celtoid population (Lepontics).

The Urnfield Culture is generally assumed to have Celtic, or Proto-Celtic speaking (Sergent, 1996), (Mallory, 1989), and also its northern Italian extensions: the Paleo-Venetian culture associated with inscriptions in an Indo-European tongue generally thought to be close to Latin (Sergent, 1996), and the Golasecca culture, associated with inscriptions in an early Celtic dialect called Lepontic (Sergent, 1996), (Lambert, 1997).

The Lepontic was spoken in the lake region of northern Italy between -700 and -400; however, it most probably was used before and after this date as well, though we have no existing proof of that. The Lepontic peoples lived along the periphery of a number of other groupings of people and in close contact with the Ligurians and Rhaetians (non-Indoeuropean tribes of the north part of Italy), in addition to the Etruscans and Venetians, and that is why their language is considered to be mixed in various ways with these others. Scientists agree to the statement that Lepontic Celts came here during one of the first waves of Celtic expansion over Europe and lived in the region until they were eventually assimilated by the expanded Latin (Roman) state (or by the later-arrived Senone Gauls, who represented the next major Celtic wave). We can only state that Lepontic was a P-Celtic tongue, but of a specific group different from both Brythonic and Goidelic. [After, the] Gauls came to Northern Italy in the early 4th century BC breaking up this balance of ethnic groups in the region.

Urnfield Culture (-1300), with cremation, spreads to the Lacio.

The ancient Romans used incineration many centuries.

Both cremation and inhumation were practiced by the Umbro-Oscans.

We know that Italic languages suffered significant phonetic changes due to pre-Indo-European population of Italy, especially this influenced Umbrian, Picene and Volscian. It looks like Latin also had not only lexical influence of Etruscan, but phonetic as well.

The Latin had sister languages also in Italy (Oscan, Umbrian, Falisc, etc.). These, along Latin constitute the Italic languages, that lead to suppose that there was once a proto-Italic that might have been spoken around -1200.

IDEA: The Italic languages would have splitted from a Illyro-Celto-Italic branch by influx of the substrate language/s present in Italy ? In the other hand, the Celto-Illyrian would be more near to Celtic and Illyrian in the north as it was already IE (Terramare Culture).

At Ancona begins the coast of that part of Gaul known as Gallia Togata [North Italy, Po Bassin]. The Siculi [Epiro-Macedonians, also Pelasgians] and the Liburni [Illyrian tribe] possessed the greater part of this district [since -1200, as the presence of Illyrians and Epirotes is posterior to the Trojan War], and more particularly the territories of Palma, of Praetutia, and of Adria. These were expelled by the Umbri [Italics, as Urnfield invaders, -1200], these again by the Etrurians [around -600, the colonists will be known as Raethians], and these in their turn by the Gauls [by -400, Celtics that will be the dominant ethnic element in the Po Basin at the arrival of the Romans]. (Pliny).

IDEA: That would point to a later arrival of the Italic tribes to Italy.

L' étruscologue italien, Mario Torelli, a écrit dans une étude de l'ancienne religion étrusque à propos de la présence latine dans l'Italie préhistorique: après avoir attiré l'attention sur la "singulière et jusqu'à présent sous-estimée 'suprémacie' de l'ambiance latino-falisque et italique orientale sur celle étrusque" il affirme que "la contribution humaine latine, falisque et italique à la phase intense de développement culturel d'époque villanovienne a été vraiment énorme" La documentation de cette affirmation se trouve dans la série d'emprunts au Latin et aux langues Italiques dans la théonymie étrusque: Ana Anna, Maris Marte, Menerva Minerva, Uni Iuno, Suris Soranus, Nethuns Neptunus, Satre Saturnus, Vetis/Veive Vediovis, Selvans Silvanus. Ce que cette documentation démontre, en effet, c'est ni plus ni moins la présence latine et italique dans l'Italie pré-villanovienne, c'est à dire du II millénaire au plus tard.

ETRUSCAN DIVINITIES: mainly Mediterranean as Aplu (Apolo), Silvano, Turma (Hermes or Mercury) Losna (Luna, Moon), Esta (Vesta) along others unknown (Tinia as Zeus), Turanna (as Fortune), Fufluns (as Baccus), Sethlans (as Vulcanus).

Herodotus: "therefore their king divided the whole Lydian people into two parts, and he appointed by lot one part to remain and the other to go forth from the land; and the king appointed himself to be over that one of the parts which had the lot to stay in the land, and his son to be over that which was departing; and the name of his son was Tyrsenos. So the one party of them, having obtained the lot to go forth from the land, went down to the sea at Smyrna and built ships for themselves, wherein they placed all the movable goods which they had and sailed away to seek for means of living and a land to dwell in; until after passing by many nations they came at last to the land of the Ombricans [Umbrians], and there they founded cities and dwell up to the present time: and changing their name they were called after the king’s son who led them out from home, not Lydians but Tyrsenians, taking the name from him."

IDEA: So they found stablished Italic tribes in the Tuscany [around -1100].

The Umbri are thought to have been the most ancient race in Italy, it being supposed that they were called "Ombrii" by the Greeks, from the fact of their having survived the rains which had inundated the earth. We read that 300 of their towns were conquered by the Tusci [Etrurians] (Pliny).

Next to this comes the seventh region, in which is Etruria, a district which begins at the river Macra, and has often changed its name. At an early period the Umbri were expelled from it by the Pelasgi; and these again by the Lydians, who from a king of theirs were named Tyrrheni, but afterwards, from the rites observed in their sacrifices, were called, in the Greek language , Tusci (Pliny).

UMBRI were not PELASGIAN

South of Rome there were two main cultures: the Adriatic, with inhumation and extended in those areas occupied by Illyrians, in the Adriatic side [Messapics]; and the culture Fosse Tombs in the Tyrrhenian side, including also Sicily [Sicani ?].

CONCLUSION: It is not clear that the Italics entered Italy with the first IE that arrive to the Penninsula around -2100. In whichever case, these IE would be represented by the Euganei, but we don't know any realistic filiation for them. In the other side, being the Terramaricoles a derivation of the Balkanic Vucedol culture, many times identified as Illyrian... In the other side we must not forget that Bell Beakers (supposedly carriers of a Italo-Celtic language) also were present in North Italy, so that the Urnfield peoples would have not found a nation and language too different from themselves (being themselves sprout from Bell Beakers). Around -1200 Italy suffered first an invasion of peoples that carried the Urnfield culture to the north: the Golasecca (or Celtoid Lepontics) and the Este (or Illyrian Liburnians / Venetians), implying the cremation of the deceased. The Urnfield peoples also reached the Tuscany, but there would be represented by Celto-Italics that suffered an strong influence from a non-IE substrate, so driving away the Italic branch from the common language. The Urnfield expansions also led to expulsions of native peoples of Greece and Turkey, and then many choosed Italy as destiny, as will be seen.

VENETS

Venetic speakers are sometimes identified as Italics or Illyrians, but evidently they were none of them, though closely related to these two groups. Also Venetic has close ties with P-Celtic and Germanic languages.

Attested that Venetic was near to the Latin group.

IDEA: In the other side to deny the filiation of Venetic with Illyrian is unreasonable since the Illyrian toponymy reflects the language spoken before the arrival of the Slavs to Dalmatia (around 500 AC), enough time as to evolve after two millennia in the region (please think over the different evolution of Spanish and Romanian, as in "cuatro" and "patru").

IDEA: In fact the Illyrian has not left inscriptions... but being the Venetic an Illyrian branch that would display that the Illyrian, coming from a culture common for Celtics and Italics (the Urnfield Culture), it would be logic to branch Illyrian with Celto-Italic, in fact modern Albanese ressembles more Italian than any Celtic language.

INFO: Veneti could correspond to Alb. vendi 'homeland, country' hence an Illyrian name.

INFO: Latin dies day = Rumanian zi. Also in Venetic: *DO- zono (where Italic got dono, "I give"). So it seems that Venetic and Romanian suffered a similar substrate influence.

INFO: Contrarily to the theory stablished by Romanian linguists, the Romanian sprout in the southern Balkans, not in Romania as many evidences point it.

VENETIC ITALIAN DIALECT: It follows the main Italian characteristics, but with some major exceptions as the sonorization of intervocalic PTK, the group LI becomes j (ALIO ajo); group SCI s, consonantic sonority, and loss of final -E (PANE pan).

IDEA: The high degree of retention of Latin/Italian characteristics would confirm then that the substrate language of this dialect did not differed too much from Italic.

Herodotus (i. 196) includes under the name of Illyrians the Heneti or Veneti, who lived at the head of the gulf; in another passage (iv. 49) he places the Illyrians on the tributary streams of the Morava river [Bosnia].

Appian, The Foreign Wars: "In order to make use of his leisure in the meantime, Sulla marched against the Eneti, the Dardani [Illyrian tribe], and the Sinti, tribes on the border of Macedonia, who were continually invading that country, and devasted their territory."

Herodotus had heard of the Heneti or Eneti on the Adriatic, and he speaks of Eneti as Illyrians.

Herodotus, The Histories: "The wisest of these, in our judgment, is one which I have learned by inquiry is also a custom of the Eneti in Illyria."

VENETI = HENETI = ILLYRIANS

IDEA: It seems probable that there was an Illyrian tribe known as Venetic near Kosovo, but that by logic reasonement, they would have occupied the areas colonized by the Illyrian Liburnians.

IDEA: If the Venetic was an Illyrian dialect, by theory with the help of modern Albanian it could be possible to understand partly Venetic inscriptions; but in fact it would be similar as to try to understand Latin inscriptions with the help of modern French.

IDEA: Another possibility would be that the Pannonians of Hungary conquered the previous IE tribes of Dalmatia, even some near Kosovo (Eneti), and some in the Troad (Eneti and Teucrians in the area). So the Pannonians would be both ethnic and geographic origin of the Illyrian / Venetic tribes, being one of these the Veneti of Italy, coming to the penninsula with other Illyrian tribes as the Liburnians or the Messapians. In whichever case, till the filiation of Venetic would not be clear, it will be difficult to explain the arrival of the Italics.

At Ancona begins the coast of that part of Gaul known as Gallia Togata [North Italy, Po Bassin]. The Siculi [Pelasgians] and the Liburni [Illryians] possessed the greater part of this district, and more particularly the territories of Palma, of Praetutia, and of Adria. These were expelled by the Umbri, these again by the Etrurians, and these in their turn by the Gauls. (Pliny).

IDEA: The fact that a Illyrian tribe occupied the Po Basin before the Italics point to an early date: maybe -1100 ? Also the fact to don't mention Venetics points that they were originated from the Illyrians or from the Umbri...

Catone, autore vissuto tra III e II secolo a. C., per qualificare i Veneti di stirpe troiana (Plin. Nat. Hist. III, 130: "Venetos troiana stirpe ortos auctor est Cato").

IDEA: And as can be seen in the Anatolian section, the Trojans seem to be related to Paeonians / Pannonians, and these related to Illyrians... Moreover a branch of Paeones dwelt in the Troad.

The Illyrians were stablished in the north coast of the Adriatic Sea since -1300. Among the Illyrian tribes, there were the Dalmatians and the Pannonians as the most famous. Another group of Illyrians, the Messapians, crossed the sea and colonized the Adriatic coast of Italy, these left some epigraphic material.

History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita) by Titus Livius: To begin with, it is generally admitted that after the capture of Troy, whilst the rest of the Trojans were massacred, against two of them -- Aeneas and Antenor -- the Achivi refused to exercise the rights of war, partly owing to old ties of hospitality, and partly because these men had always been in favour of making peace and surrendering Helen. Their subsequent fortunes were different. Antenor sailed into the furthest part of the Adriatic Sea, Enetians who had been driven from Paphlagonia by a revolution and after losing their king Pylaemenes before Troy were looking for a settlement and a leader. The combined force of Enetians and Trojans defeated the Euganei, who dwelt between the sea and the Alps and occupied their land. The place where they disembarked was called Troy, and the name was extended to the surrounding district; the whole nation were called Veneti.

ENETIANS were not TROJANS: "combined force of Enetians and Trojans".

IDEA: The fact to mention a country with a name of a tribe doesnot imply to have similar language, take the case of the Germanic Franks in France; but such situation would point to a period of dominance at least.

"As to Aeneas, Antenor, and the Enetians, and, in a word, the survivors of the Trojan War that wandered forth into the whole inhabited world - is it proper not to reckon them among the men of ancient times? For it came about that, on account of the length of the campaign, the Greeks of that time, and the barbarians as well, lost both what they had at home and what they had acquired by the campaign; and so, after the destruction of Troy, not only did the victors turn to piracy because of their poverty, the still more the vanquished who survived the war. And, indeed, it is said that a great many cities were founded by them along the whole sea-coast outside of Greece, and in some places in the interior too." (Strabo).

And others say that a tribe called Eneti, bordering on the Cappadocians, made an expedition with the Cimmerians and then were driven out to the Adriatic Sea. But the thing upon which there is general agreement is, that the Eneti, to whom Pylaemenes belonged, were the most notable tribe of the Paphlagonians, and that, furthermore, these made the expedition with him in very great numbers, but, losing their leader, crossed over to Thrace after the capture of Troy, and on their wanderings went to the Enetian country, as it is now called. According to some writers, Antenor and his children took part in this expedition and settled at the recess of the Adriatic, as mentioned by me in my account of Italy. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that it was on this account that the Eneti disappeared and are not to be seen in Paphlagonia. (Strabo).

Maeandrius says that the Eneti first set forth from the country of the White Syrians [north Turkey]and allied themselves with the Trojans, and that they sailed away from Troy with the Thracians and took up their abode round the recess of the Adrias, but that the Eneti who did not have a part in the expedition had become Cappadocians [have changed language]. (Strabo).

At any rate, Sophocles says that at the capture of Troy a leopard's skin was put before the doors of Antenor as a sign that his house was to be left unpillaged; and Antenor and his children safely escaped to Thrace with the survivors of the Heneti, and from there got across to the Adriatic Henetice. (Strabo).

Livy, History of Rome: Antenor sailed into the furthest part of the Adriatic, accompanied by a number of Enetians who had been driven from Paphlagonia by a revolution and after losing their king Pylaemenes before Troy were looking for a settlement and a leader.

IDEA: Such Enetians not necessarily were native Paphlagonians but colonists from the Balkans expelled by natives.

In the Illiad, Homer refers to the Paphlagonians as one of the most ancient nations of Asia Minor, derived from the Eneti or Heneti. This reference has prompted speculations that the Paphlagonians are a stray branch of the Veneti, who migrated from the Balkans to settle at the head of the Adriatic. Others suggest that the Paphlagonians are kin to the Macedonians tracing common roots to the Phrygians.

IDEA: As in the Anatolian section it seems that the Trojans can be linked to Teucrians, and those to Pannonians/Paeones, and the last are related to the Illyrians, the mith about a common ancestry between Veneti and Trojans could be recognized.

THE ETRUSCAN MYSTERY - THEIR ORIGINS - THE PELASGIANS

Arutiunov: most probably Etruscan was related to Hurri-Urartic and migrated from Asia Minor.

Etruscan has been linked with East Caucasian languages.

IDEA: In fact the Lydian, being a descendant language from Luwian, was a blend of Hatti Caucasian and Anatolian Indoeuropean.

There were no voiced stops in Etruscan: no /b/, /d/, or /g/; when these occured in foreign words they were usually written P, T and K. Etruscan distinguished between aspirated and unaspirated unvoiced stops: /p/ from /ph/, /c/ from /ch/, /t/ from /th/,like some other languages of the time, including Greek.

The Sumerians did not distinguish between voiced and voiceless stops like /b/ and /p/, /d/ and /t/, or /g/ and /k/.

LINEAR A language: The phonetics is also surprisingly close to Etruscan (no difference between voiced and voiceless consonants, between l and r and hesitation between l and d) - this mutation was common among many Mediterranean languages and sometimes was borrowed into Latin.

There were no voiced stops in Etruscan: no [b], [d], or [g], so common in Indo-European tongues; when these sounds occured in foreign words they were usually written P, T and K. Etruscan distinguished between aspirated and unaspirated unvoiced stops: [p] from [ph], [c] from [ch], [t] from [th], which was common only in Greek or Iranian languages but not in Italic.

Florentin dialect of Tuscany: mutho, poho, saffa from Italian: muto, poco, sapa.

The language which is conventionally called Prehellenic A is not attested but can be supposed through the study of the tracks it left in Greek. A number of words and of toponym, such as Corinthos or Knossos are not explained through Greek, and does not even appear to be Indo-European, what allows us to suppose they belong to another tongue which would have been spoken in Greece (and in Southern Italy as well) before the coming of the Greeks. This linguistic layer seems to be relatively coherent, with few dialectal variations, what would suggest it was quite recent. The nature of the relationships between this hypothetical language and the neighboring tongues is unclear but it seems to share a few words with Etruscan.

spur (town, city) - Sparte (Greek placename); huth (four) - Uttena (Tetrapolis); netsvis (haruspice) - nedus (viscera); puia (wife) - opu (I marry); purth (magistrate) - prutanis (magistrate); Corithus (placename in Etruria) - Corinthos in Greece; Curtun (placename) - Gurton in Greece; Tarkhuna (placename, named after a god) - Tarkhuw (to hold a funerary office); tamera (kind of priest) - themeros (holy, sacred); mutu (thyme) - mnthos (mint); tepa (hill) - Thbai or Thebes (placename).

The definite proof of the oriental origin of the Etruscans is that a hero of great significance is Tarchon. He is clearly the Stormgod Tarhun, the highest god of the Luwians and Hittites. In any case Tarchon had the power to ward off lightnings; the Anatolian Tarhunt was the god of lightning.

It is, unfortunately, impossible to really compare and phonology of the two languages, since prehellenic words have been assimilated into the Greek phonetic system. The similarities in vocabulary are, however, striking and clearly suggest that at least one of the languages spoken in Greece prior to the coming of the Greeks was somehow related to Etruscan.

On Etruscan only are known some 250 words and the most basic elements of grammar. We can understand most short writings but longer texts are beyond our understanding. Moreover, Etruscan seems to be an isolate. The only tongues that it is known to related to are the neighboring Rhaetic, of which we know almost nothing, and Lemnian, spoken on a small Aegean island, still very badly understood. Many attempts have been made to decipher Etruscan or to link it to better known language families but, so far, none has given satisfying results. We can only say that Etruscan shows intriguing similarities to Indo-European languages, without belonging to that family.

IDEA: similar would happen to an unkown IE language with half of its vocabulary coming of a Hurrian substrate...

Indo-European is generally considered as a better candidate for Etruscan, even if this hypothesis is far from being accepted by all scholars. It has long been remarked that the Etruscan nominal morphology resembled the Indo-european one

The Position of Etruscan in the Western Mediterranean ancient linguistic landscape (Perrotin):

Georgiev has described it as a descendent of Hittite, but this theory has not been accepted by Italian etruscologists. Adrados and Woudhuizen have tried to link it to Lycian (an Anatolian language spoken during the hellenistic period and generally considered as a descendent of Luwian). Sergent considers Adrados' arguments as "powerful". Faucouneau has also supposed a genetic link between Lycian and Etruscan: he considers as archaic Indo-European tongues. He would view them as survivors of a old linguistic layer - called Proto-Indo-european - corresponding to the diffusion of agrarian economy in Europe around 6000 B.C and which would have been replaced after 4000 B.C by Indo-European stricto-sensu.

Linguistically Lydian is the most deviating of the Anatolian languages. Oettinger (1978) argues that Lydian belonged to the Palaic-Luwian group (which remained after Hittite had left the group). From this group Lydian would have branched off first.

In a few centuries after their arrival to Asai Minor, the Hittites acquired vocabulary, which since then was just 20% Indo-European. All religious terms, personal names and place names, even many phonetic and morphological peculiarities of Hittite became completely non-Indo-European.

West Anatolia would have been occupied by non-IE peoples, but later migrations of Anatolians would carry there future Carian, Lycian, Lydian, etc.

IDEA: So an IE language that only keeps a fifht of the common IE words, what would become if blended again with a non-IE language ?

A co-incidence or relic is the name Shakalasha from the Egyptian list. An ancient city in later region of Lycia was called Sagalassa. In the sixth century BC it was occupied by Lycians, descendants of Indo-European Luwians, but in the 13th century, when Egypt was full of fear of Sea Peoples, it was surely a city of some other people, not Hittite - Egyptians never mention Hittites as one of the Sea Peoples. Lycians just settled on these lands, but preserved names of towns as well as the name of the very country - Lukka in Hittite sources.

IDEA: by that ressembles so much to Indoeuropean the Etrusc ?

Steinbauer observes that the Etruscan shows most connections (loanwords) with Lydian.

The most stricking case is the word "tamara" which means "priest" which is similar at hititte word for priest: "damara", which might have an Hurrite origin. Or "erect" in etruscan is "thuv" where in Lydian was "tuve". Even has words that would lead to an old IE branch: apa/father, ati/mother, avil/year, usil/sun, etnam/and, lein/die, nefts/nephew, vers/fire, tin/day, spet/drink, etc.

There is a relative consensus among scholars that Etruscan shares a sizable of case and verbal endings with Indo-European. This is particularly visible for case endings, as all Etruscan nominal endings (with the exception of the plural marker -r) seem to have cognates in Indo-European.

The Etruscan pronominal system - at least the part of it we understand - is relatively close to the Indo-European one, each Etruscan pronoun having an apparent cognate in Indo-European. It is possible - if rare - for a pronoun to be borrowed (for instance "they" in modern English) but it is highly unlikely for a whole set of pronoun.

Contrary to what is generally believed, there are real convergences in vocabulary between Etruscan and Indo-European tongues.

clan (son) / *kwl- (descendent)

sekh, sec (daughter) / Thracian sukis (girl) / IE *su- (to engender)

prumaths (grandson) / Irish maq- (son)

neftsh (grandson) / Latin nepos (grandson)

lautn (family, gens) / Proto-Indo-European *leudh (people)

tamna (horse) / Latin domo (I tame)

tur (to give) / Proto-Indo-European don/r- (to give)

tmia (holy building) / Latin domus (house)

avil (year) / Proto-Indo-European *aiw (long period of time)

arac (hawk) / haras (eagle)

math- (mead, inebriating drink) / medhu (honey, mead)

IDEA: More possible IE words: vers- fire; vinum wine; usil sun; tuthi community (Umbrian tota); tin- day; ta (demonstrative) this; puth- cup, vase, well? (Lat. puteus, puteal); mi (pronoun) I, me; lup- (verb) to die; leu- lion; etnam and; eleivana of oil; cupe cup (Lat. cupa); an ( pronoun) he, she.

IDEA: Even numerals seem a blend Hurrian "kig" in Etruscan "three" (ci) with ressembling IE numerals (thu, huth, sha, semph, nurph for 2, 4, 6, 7, 9).

The next words are numerals from one to teen: mi, erku, erekh, chorkh, hing, vech, evthn, uth, inn, tasn; are Indoeuropean ?

INFO: Might be, since the numerals belong to classic Armenian...

Proto-Indo-European *deiwos (god of daylight) was the supreme deity of Indo-European pagan pantheon. He was worshipped among Anatolians as well, and was called tiwat (sun god) in Luwian, and tijaz, tiuna (a god) in Palaic. That happens according to common Anatolian phonetic laws. But in Hittite, nevertheless, this god's name was like šiu, šiun, and the word for "a day" cognate to it was šiwat.

IDEA: Etruscans shared with IE "tamna" (horse), clearly linked with IE *dom- (to tame), being then possible that Etruscans were so "old" that for them to tame was so ancient as to link such verb with the horse, something as "to horse"; some differences with their Lemnic counterpart would come from the fact that in Italy they found new substrates: Italic, or whatever language was before...

Tamera (kind of priest), possibly related to Hittite Dammara- (temple functionary); zilac (chief magistrate of an Etruscan city), possibly related to Greek (from Anatolian) zelarkhos (magistrate of the Greek city of Kerasous); seleit (celebration, attribute of the sacred fire), possibly related to Carian sla- (to honor ); quthef- (to take revenge), possibly related to Hittite kattawatar (revenge, retribution); sacni (sanctuary), possibly related to Hittise shaklaish (rite); Tarkhna- (Tarquinia, place name), possibly related to Luwian Tarhu- (chief deity); Aminth (Eros), possibly related to Lydian ama- (to love) with a present participle ending -in2. This ending is not Lydian, however, but it may belong to another Anatolian tongue. These words, nevertheless suggest that Etruscan have had contacts with peoples speaking Anatolian languages. Given the nature of the borrowings, this contact must have occurred relatively recently.

Lydian IE example: "Akit keth fasfênu akat qyy fakantrov akmyyis kis dditollath bitath fakmyyitin Kyydãnk Artimuk katsarlokid akit ethkok êtkratad kotath amu Mitridastas' fêtamñidñ aks' kis êmñ êtamñ uñ bavddnas'od buk in mêtrith buk bidêñ kik int akmyy ked êmeth êtams' uñ akath Artimus' bifers't." Which means "So-here, what I have and-this to whom trust and-so-to-him-who harm does and-so-him both Kildans and Artemis will revenge, and will be-done as-this I, Mitridast, decide, and he, who my prescription to-be made, ignores or breaks it, or any harm does, and-so-to-him the prescription to-be made, will order and-this Artemis will-define." (inscription found in Sardis)

IDEA: All at all, Etruscan seems that was a branch of IE (or even a brother language, an Indoeuropoid language); the other case is that the main differences with common IE would have been provoked by an strong substratum (in lexic and in morphology: take per example the pigdin languages of New Guinea...). The third possibility is a Dravidian-status: has 1/5 of vocabulary based in IE loanwords, but is another family (in the case of Etruscan the family wouild point to Hurrian).

IDEA: the Lydian that we know is posterior to -1200, so that it could have "suffered" a change by the new IE Balkanic languages that entered in Anatolia by then. Otherwise the first inscriptions date to -V Century.

As other scholars, it is recognized that there is a connection between the Etruscans and the Tyrsenoi of the East [Aegean area], because of the identity of their names, and because of the Lemnos inscription.

Lemnian, like Etruscan, ignores the distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants. It does posses the same three basic stops /k/, /t/ and /p/. Lemnian has obviously a number of words in common with Etruscan. Due to our bad understanding of both languages, it is not possible to make a thorough comparative study, but the following forms are too close to be unrelated: Avil - Avi- (year), shealkh - sialkhve- (forty or sixty), Ziv- (to live) - shivai (has lived); -m - -m (and); nefts - naphoth (grandson). Both languages also had similar morphologies (including declensions).

Homer uses the same name for Etruscans, Pelasgoi, as is used for people in the north-west of Anatolia. Homer, in fact, mentions Pelasgoi as allies ofTroy.

The Kumdanli nscription, though very late (-V Century), the inscription is of great interest, as it is the only time that we have inscriptional evidence for Tyrsenoi in Asia Minor.

Etruscan was spoken in Toscana and in the Marche, also in the Raetian Alps (Tirol).

The Etruscan civilization did not individualize before -1200 when the proto-Villanovian Culture, characterized by the general use of incineration, appears exactly in those parts of the peninsula where Etruscan will later be spoken; as before that, Tuscany and the areas which would be Etruscan speaking, did not differ in any way from the rest of Italy: they were occupied by the Appenine culture, which will be at the origin of the later Italic cultures (Briquel, 1999).

IDEA: Another radical point to originate the Etruscan might be found in the Remedello Culture, that seems was evolved from Vucedol inmigrants, the high blend with substrate traits and words would deviate so much Vucedol's IE as was Hittite under Hatti.

IDEA: but after Remedello there came the Bell Beakers... supposedly speakers of Italo-Celt.

The transition between Proto-Villanova and Villanova appears to be a continuous one, but that between Proto-Villanova and the preceding Bronze Age Apennine culture, about -1200, shows a serious break.

Genetic map of Italy points clearly to a different gene pool type in Toscana that might represent a foreign population. Secondary points also are interesting: Sicily, South Italy, Alps and Liguria-Piedmont. (Alberto Piazza).

A glance at the map makes it probable that these people came by sea, not from the north, from the Urnfield culture (which are mostly Indo-European peoples).-Proto-Villanova is characterized by the transition to cremation. This is also indeed found often in Asia Minor.

If the Etruscans were in Tuscany already when the Indo-Europeans entered Italy, they would have taken Tuscany just like the whole rest of Italy.

Nel IX secolo si formano in Etruria i primi centri protourbani "villanoviani" (Tarquinia, Cerveteri, Veio ecc.).

Nearly every major Etruscan city of historical times has yielded Villanovan remains, they diposite the ashes in urns along grave goods. Cremation with ashes in a biconical vessel is commonly found as a holdover from the Proto-Villanovan; the inhumation also appeared and during the Orientalizing period eventually became the prevailing rite, except in northern Etruria, where cremation persisted to the 1st century BC.

The Latins practiced commonly the inceneration of the deceased (as usual among IE), but since the Empire they changed towards inhumation.

-1000: first iron in Italy with the Villanova Culture (Italics ?), around -900 the area is attested to be Etruscan. Their rites are Mediterranean: they were buried in fossae, after some centuries in tumulus and with ritual sacrifices.

-800/-450 Etruscans in Toscana, Alps and Corsica.

The Etruscan civilization existed in Etruria in the northern part of what is now Italy prior to the formation of the Roman Republic. Etruscans were a non-Indo-European people who inhabited northern and central Italy before 800 BC. Herodotus records the legend that they came from Lydia, which has support from non-Greek inscriptions found on the island of Lemnos that appear to be in a language related to Etruscan, and have been dated to the sixth century BC.

The Greeks called the Etruscans Tyrsenoi, a name they also used for people in the north-west of Asia Minor.

IDEA: And this name seems related with the own name that the Etruscans used for themselves: Rasenas (Ty + Rsena or Ty + Rhena); also Lycians showed a tendence to save vocals: the Greeks named them Termilians, but they named to themselves Trmmil.

According to the Victory Stela found near Thebes, the Sea Peoples destroyed the Hittite kingdom, and consisted of the following peoples or clans: Shardana [Sardinians], Lukka [Lycians], Meshwesh [Meoinians ?], Teresh [Tyrrhenians], Ekwesh [Acheans...] and Shekelesh [Siculs]. Palestines and the future Phoenicians. The Teresh and Lukka were probably from western Anatolia, and may correspond to the ancestors of the later Lydians and Lycians, respectively. However, the Teresh may also have been the people later known to the Greeks as the Tyrsenoi, the Etruscans, and already familiar to the Hittites as the Taruisa, which latter is suspiciously similar to the Greek Troia.

After the names of Priamos and Paris had been interpreted as Luwian, in any case Anatolian, and with the recent find of the Luwian seal in the city of Troy, it was believed that the Trojans spoke Luwian.

In regard to Crete, writers agree that in ancient times it had good laws, and rendered the best of the Greeks its emulators, and in particular the Lacedaemonians, as is shown, for instance, by Plato and also by Ephorus, who in his Europe has described its constitution. But later it changed very much for the worse; for after the Tyrrhenians, who more than any other people ravaged Our Sea [the Mediterranean], the Cretans succeeded to the business of piracy [...]. (Strabo).

Strabo: "The Tyrrheni, then, are called among the Romans "Etrusci" and "Tusci" [from there Toscana]. The Greeks, however, so the story goes, named them thus after Tyrrhenus, the son of Atys, who sent forth colonists hither from Lydia: At a time of famine and dearth of crops, Atys, one of the descendants of Heracles and Omphale, having only two children, by a casting of lots detained one of them, Lydus, and, assembling the greater part of the people with the other, Tyrrhenus, sent them forth. And when Tyrrhenus came, he not only called the country Tyrrhenia after himself, but also put Tarco in charge as "coloniser," and founded twelve cities; Tarco, I say, after whom the city of Tarquinia is named, who, on account of his sagacity from boyhood, is said by the myth-tellers to have been born with grey hair. Now at first the Tyrrheni, since they were subject to the orders of only one ruler, were very strong..."

Nor must we forget that the Etruscans declared consanguinity with Sardis on the ground of an early colonisation of Etruria by the Lydians (Tacitus, ANN., IV, 55).

And the Lydians themselves say that the games which are now in use among them and among the Hellenes were also their invention. These they say were invented among them at the same time as they colonised Tyrsenia, and this is the account they give of them: -In the reign of Atys the son of Manes their king there came to be a grievous dearth over the whole of Lydia; and the Lydians for a time continued to endure it, but afterwards, as it did not cease, they sought for remedies; and one devised one thing and another of them devised another thing. And then were discovered, they say, the ways of playing with the dice and the knucklebones and the ball, and all the other games excepting draughts (for the discovery of this last is not claimed by the Lydians). These games they invented as a resource against the famine, and thus they used to do:-on one of the days they would play games all the time in order that they might not feel the want of food, and on the next they ceased from their games and had food: and thus they went on for eighteen years. As however the evil did not slacken but pressed upon them ever more and more, therefore their king divided the whole Lydian people into two parts, and he appointed by lot one part to remain and the other to go forth from the land; and the king appointed himself to be over that one of the parts which had the lot to stay in the land, and his son to be over that which was departing; and the name of his son was Tyrsenos. So the one party of them, having obtained the lot to go forth from the land, went down to the sea at Smyrna and built ships for themselves, wherein they placed all the movable goods which they had and sailed away to seek for means of living and a land to dwell in; until after passing by many nations they came at last to the land of the Ombricans, and there they founded cities and dwell up to the present time: and changing their name they were called after the king’s son who led them out from home, not Lydians but Tyrsenians, taking the name from him. (Herodotus).

IDEA: The Lydians themselves recognized that the Etruscans were their descendants, keeping also some details.

And Euripides too, in his Archelaus, says: 'Danaus, the father of fifty daughters, on coming into Argos, took up his abode in the city of Inachus, and throughout Greece he laid down a law that all people hitherto named Pelasgians were to be called Danaans'. And again, Anticleides says that they were the first to settle the regions round about Lemnos and Imbros, and indeed that some of these sailed away to Italy with Tyrrhenus the son of Atys. And the compilers of the histories of The Land of Atthis give accounts of the Pelasgi, believing that the Pelasgi were in fact at Athens too, although the Pelasgi were by the Attic people called 'Pelargi', the compilers add, because they were wanderers and, like birds, resorted to those places whither chance led them. (Strabo).

IDEA: There was a joint or almost consecutive colonization of Etruria by Pelasgian and Lydian elements, so Etrusc from which of these cultures is debt ? As Etrusc does not ressembles Epiro-Macedonian (the Pelasgian de facto), it is to suppose that it was originated from Lydian.

Strabo: "Among the Greeks, however, this city [Caere, one of the twenty cities founded by Tyrrhenus] was in good repute both for bravery and for righteousness; for it not only abstained from all piracy [as was usual among the Sea Peoples], but also set up at Pytho what is called "the treasury of the Agyllaei"; for what is now Caerea was formerly called Agylla, and is said to have been founded by Pelasgi who had come from Thessaly. But when those Lydians whose name was changed to Tyrrheni marched against the Agyllaei, one of them approached the wall and inquired what the name of the city was, and when one of the Thessalians on the wall, instead of replying to the inquiry, saluted him with a 'Chaere' ".

PELASGIANS were not TYRRHENIANS, and had not related languages: they were not able to understood even a salutation.

The Lydians, on the other hand, are expressly stated to have had nothing in common with the Pelasgians (Dion. i. 30).

Proto-Villanovia = Pelasgians with bronze, Villanova = Anatolian Etruscans with iron ??

Strabo, Geography book 6: All of it is rugged and mountainous, since it embraces a large portion of the Apennine Mountains; and it is thought to have admitted Arcadians [Pelasgians] as colonists.

IDEA: It would point that first was a Pelasgian colonization, and that the Etruscan could be a blend of Pelasgian [Linear B Greek or Epiro-Macedonian possibly] and Lydian [Anatolian Indoeuropean plus Hatti].

What language the Pelasgians spoke I cannot say definitely. But if one may judge by those that still remain of the Pelasgians who live above the Tyrrheni in the city of Creston--who were once neighbors of the people now called Dorians, and at that time inhabited the country which now is called Thessalian-- and of the Pelasgians who inhabited Placia and Scylace on the Hellespont, who came to live among the Athenians, and by other towns too which were once Pelasgian and afterwards took a different name: if, as I said, one may judge by these, the Pelasgians spoke a language which was not Greek. If, then, all the Pelasgian stock spoke so, then the Attic nation, being of Pelasgian blood, must have changed its language too at the time when it became part of the Hellenes. For the people of Creston and Placia have a language of their own in common, which is not the language of their neighbors; and it is plain that they still preserve the manner of speech which they brought with them in their migration into the places where they live.

IDEA: The survival of a city in Tuscany with Pelasgic language is seen as a fact apart of the majoritary language of the region, the Etruscan, pointing that that were not related languages, and that some Pelasgians were not assimilated in Tuscany. So that would lead to think that Etrusc was a direct descendent language of Lydian, supposedly influenced by the Pelasgian and Italic substrates.

If the Tyrrheni are the Etruscans, then Creston may be Cortona, but is not sure.

Herodotus describes the migration of the Pelasgians to Umbria, where they made Cortona their chief town.

The language of Cortona, which was Etruscan [??], Herodotus said that it was Pelasgian, which is only because he accepts the story that the Etruscans were, at least partly, Pelasgians.

Strabo: "To Gravisci [city in Toscana], then, the distance is three hundred stadia; and in the interval is a place called Regis Villa. History tells us that this was once the palace of Maleos, the Pelasgian, who, it is said, although he held dominion in the places mentioned, along with the Pelasgi who helped him to colonise them, departed thence to Athens. And this is also the stock to which people belong who have taken and now hold Agylla. Again, for Gravisci to Pyrgi the distance is a little less than one hundred and eighty stadia; it is the port-town of the Caeretani, thirty stadia away. And Pyrgi has a temple of Eilethyia, an establishment of the Pelasgi".

IDEA: Strabo also details the process of colonization and foundation of Greek cities in Magna Grecia [South Italy] and the western coast of Turkey with detail. Few scholars doubt about his informations on that.

IDEA: Confirmation of a Pelasgian migration before that of the Tyrrhenians.

IDEA: Egyptian Sea People "Denyen" could be identified as the Danaans (Pelasgians) ? Which territories they were able to held ?? Maybe Toscana ?

Strabo: "As for Pisa, it was founded by those Pisatae who lived in the Peloponnesus, who made the expedition to Ilium with Nestor and on the return voyage went astray, some to Metapontum, and others to the territory of Pisa, although all of them were called Pylians."

IDEA: then a Greek [or Pelasgian] colony in Toscana; a fact that would point again to a blend between Greek, Linear B Greek and Anatolian.

CONCLUSION: The actual Tuscany seems was inhabited by native Itatic tribes (Umbri above all), and that after the Trojan War were pushed towards the mountains by Pelasgians, themselves expelled from Albania and Greece. Some decades after, it would appear a new wave of invaders, in this case coming from Anatolia (Lydians), but could be more logic to think that the Lydians were invaders of Maeonia (as could be seen in the section of Anatolia) from the Aegean Islands, inhabited by Leleges. Some of such Leleges would have remained in the Aegean Islands after the Greek colonization, erecting some centuries after the Lemnos' stele.

IDEA: Urnfield apports Italics with cremation, proto-Villanova apports Pelasgians, and Villanova apports Lydians/Tyrrhenians ?

RAETHIANS (OR THE NORTH ETRUSCANS)

The Raethians occupied an area east of Trento and Verona.

It seems that Rhaetic is related to Etruscan, for it is seen many similar phonetic characteristics as well as grammatical terminations. It may thus be another relic of the pre-Indo-European substratum of Italy.

Rhaetic was very close to "classical" Etruscan, perhaps even a mere dialect of it, what is by no way surprising, the territories of the two peoples being adjacent.

The ancient Raetian province (Rhaetia o Rhaetica) was a territory that was situated between the Alps, the High Danube and the Inn River. This region was inhabited by the rhaetii or raeti which left many inscriptions in their language, a language not linked yet but that seems to have common endings with Etruscan, and maybe both could be related. Moreover there are certain number of words that seem to have Etruscan correspondences.

The Rhaetii were a mountain people inhabiting Eastern and Southern Switzerland, Southern Bavaria , Western Austria and Northern Italy. Rhaetic was very close to "classical" Etruscan, perhaps even a mere dialect of it, what is by no way surprising, the territories of the two peoples being adjacent.

The Lepontii was an Alpine people, who inhabited the valleys on the south side of the Alps, about the head of the two great lakes, the Lago Como and Lago Maggiore. Strabo tells us distinctly that they were a Rhaetian tribe (iv. p. 206), and adds that, like many others of the minor Alpine tribes, they had at one time spread further into Italy, but had been gradually driven back into the mountains. (Ib. p. 204.) There is some difficulty in determining the position and limits of their territory. Caesar tells us that the Rhine took its rise in the country of the Lepontii (B. G. iv. 10), and Pliny says that the Uberi (or Viberi), who were a tribe of the Lepontii, occupied the sources of the Rhone (Plin. iii. 20. s. 24). [the Grisuns and the Valais cantons, both in S. Switzerland].

Many nations dwell among the Alps; but the more remarkable, between Pola and the district of Tergeste, are the Secusses, the Subocrini, the Catali, the Menocaleni, and near the Carni the people formerly called the Taurisci, but now the Norici. Adjoining to these are the Rhæti and the Vindelici, who are all divided into a multitude of states. It is supposed that the Rhæti are the descendants of the Tuscans, who were expelled by the Gauls and migrated hither under the command of their chief, whose name was Rhætus. Turning then to the side of the Alps which fronts Italy, we have the Euganean nations enjoying Latin rights, and of whom Cato enumerates thirty-four towns. [...] The Vennonenses and the Sarunetes , peoples of the Rhæti, dwell about the sources of the river Rhenus [Rhin, the Grisuns region in Switzerland], while the tribe of the Lepontii, known as the Uberi, dwell in the vicinity of the sources of the Rhodanus [Valais], in the same district of the Alps. There are also other native tribes here, who have received Latin rights, such as the Octodurenses , and their neighbours the Centrones , the Cottian states, the Ligurian Vagienni, descended from the Caturiges [Gaulish tribe], as also those called Montani; besides numerous nations of the Capillati , on the confines of the Ligurian Sea. (Pliny).

IDEA: According to such account, the Raethians would be Etruscans who fleed northwards from their colonies placed along the Po river.

IDEA: Etruscan own name (Rasennas) would be linkied with "Raethians" ?

ITALIANIZED TROJANS (OR PELASGIANS): THE LATINS

Roma comes from the Etruscan clan "Ruma"; the legend said that Eneas was a Trojan prince founder of Roma, and antecessor of Romulus who led the rape of the Sabianian women.

IDEA: Such ancient legend of the rape of Italic Sabinian women by Trojan or Etruscan men, in case to be true, or in the case to point that the invaders after slain the male population got for themselves the widows, would lead to the fact that it could have been a racial blend between Trojans and Italics in the region, but that the Italic language prevailed... but so affected by Trojan that splitted from the common Oscao-Umbrian Italic branch.

There are evidences in the Latin numerals that in Roma once Etruscan was spoken.

The Latins used a familiar formulation of evident Etruscan origin: each person is named with: praenomen, personal indication, and nomen or gentilicy, followed by the reference of the name of the father.

Pausanias, Description of Greece book 8: That part of modern Rome, which once was the home of Evander and the Arcadians [Pelasgians] who accompanied him, got the name of Pallantium in memory of the city in Arcadia.

[...] Aeneias collected a host of followers and set sail with his father Anchises and his son Ascanius; and some say that he took up his abode near the Macedonian Olympus, others that he founded Capyae near Mantineia in Arcadia, deriving the name he gave the settlement from Capys, and others say that he landed at Aegesta in Sicily with Elymus the Trojan and took possession of Eryx and Lilybaeum, and gave the names Scamander and Simoeis to rivers near Aegesta, and that thence he went into the Latin country and made it his abode, in accordance with an oracle which bade him abide where he should eat up his table, and that this took place in the Latin country in the neighborhood of Lavinium, where a large loaf of bread was put down for a table, for want of a better table, and eaten up along with the meats upon it. Homer, however, appears not to be in agreement with either of the two stories, nor yet with the above account of the founders of Scepsis; for he clearly indicates that Aeneias remained in Troy and succeeded to the empire and bequeathed the succession thereto to his sons' sons, the family of the Priamidae having been wiped out: "For already the race of Priam was hated, by the son of Cronus; and now verily the mighty Aeneias will rule over the Trojans, and his sons' sons that are hereafter to be born." (Strabo).

IDEA: which branch of Trojans... ?

History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita) by Titus Livius: Similar misfortunes led to Aeneas becoming a wanderer but the Fates were preparing a higher destiny for him. He first visited Macedonia, then was carried down to Sicily in quest of a settlement; from Sicily he directed his course to the Laurentian territory [Toscana]. Here, too, the name of Troy is found, and here the Trojans disembarked, and as their almost infinite wanderings had left them nothing but their arms and their ships, they began to plunder the neighbourhood. The Aborigines, who occupied the country, with their king Latinus at their head came hastily together from the city and the country districts to repel the inroads of the strangers by force of arms. From this point there is a twofold tradition. According to the one, Latinus was defeated in battle, and made peace with Aeneas, and subsequently a family alliance. According to the other, whilst the two armies were standing ready to engage and waiting for the signal, Latinus advanced in front of his lines and invited the leader of the strangers to a conference. He inquired of him what manner of men they were, whence they came, what had happened to make them leave their homes, what were they in quest of when they landed in Latinus' territory. When he heard that the men were Trojans, that their leader was Aeneas, the son of Anchises and Venus, that their city had been burnt, and that the homeless exiles were now looking for a place to settle in and build a city, he was so struck with the noble bearing of the men and their leader, and their readiness to accept alike either peace or war, that he gave his right hand as a solemn pledge of friendship for the future. A formal treaty was made between the leaders and mutual greetings exchanged between the armies. Latinus received Aeneas as a guest in his house, and there, in the presence of his tutelary deities, completed the political alliance by a domestic one, and gave his daughter in marriage to Aeneas. This incident confirmed the Trojans in the hope that they had reached the term of their wanderings and won a permanent home. They built a town, which Aeneas called Lavinium after his wife. In a short time a boy was born of the new marriage, to whom his parents gave the name of Ascanius.

IDEA: some say that all these old traditions of wandering sea peoples were nothing but a mere way to adjudicate a glorious origin for each nation; but with so many linguistic tracks, so many testimonies, so many little details, so many archeological evidences and coincidences, and so many historical facts prooved, why to invent so many histories on vanquised peoples ?

IDEA: Such account also would point to a fussion of Trojans and native Italics.

But Caesar, not only being fond of Alexander [the Great], but also having better known evidences of kinship with the llians [Trojans], felt encouraged to bestow kindness upon them with all the zest of youth: better known evidences, first, because he was a Roman, and because the Romans believe Aeneias [Trojan princep] to have been their original founder. (Strabo).

IDEA: So the reports of an Anatolian origin of the Romans was not an elithist speculation, but was a popular belief.

The ancient legends of Romul who unified Latins and Sabines are not quite true - they just mixed within the seven Roman hills.

From the Villanovans arose both the Etruscans and Latins, two distinctly different language groups.

Palatinum [Roman hill] and places around it contain many burial places where burials were completed by burning of the dead. That is why it was strange and surprising to find completely another type of burials on the nearby hills of Aesquilinum, Viminal and Quirinal. These burials, when dead people were laid unburned, start appearing in the 9th century and continue in the 8th one. Though it is obvious, that the culture of both communities was similar a lot, they must have been different tribes: Latins and Sabines. It is widely known that Latins everywhere used to burn the dead, while Sabines and other tribes of the Osco-Umbrian branch, on the contrary, never did such.

INFO: The Etruscan in the first period also burned their deceased.

Roma is an Etruscan name. The names of the three main triba (tribes) which formed the first population of Rome, were Luceri, Ticii, and Ramni. These, as many think nowadays, were the names of the three tribes which composed the citizenship. While Luceri could be Latins (they worshipped a wolf, lupus, which was their main totem), Ticii must have been Sabines (from their legendary king Titus), and Ramni, who gave the name to the whole city, is not an Italic name - more likely an Etruscan one.

According to ancient legends, the second king of Rome was Numa Pompilius, a Sabine from the city of Cures. The next one, Tullus Hostilius, was a Latin: we should mention that kings then were elected by the people, so they did not succeed their ancestors. The fourth king, Ancus Martius, again a Sabine, according to the tradition, added the hill of Janiculum (across the Tiber, on the Etruscan territory) to the city's borders. All this period Etruscan migrants settled in Rome, and so when in 616 BC a newcomer from Etruria, some Lucius Tarquinius, "ran for kingdom", he was elected king, and this was the beginning of the Etruscan rule in Rome.

A conflict between the Latin nobles and the king led to an uprising, and Etruscans were ousted from the city in about 510 BC.

OTHER MIGRANTIONS

Some Mycenean pottery dating to around -1500 has been found in Sicily, Taranto and Ischia; some Sicilian artifacts have been found in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

IDEA: So there was a good enough knowledge of Greek peoples about Italy, and on maritime travels.

In Egyptian records of the second wave of Sea Peoples attacks in c. 1186 BC, during the reign of Pharaoh Rameses III, the Shardana [Sardinians], Teresh [Tyrsenians], and Shekelesh [Siculs] are still considered to be a menace, but new names also appear: the Denyen [Danaans ?], Tjeker, Weshesh and Peleset [Philisteans, the future Palestines].

Now such were the conditions at the time of the Trojan War, but all kinds of changes followed later; for the parts round Cyzicus as far as the Practius were colonized by Phrygians, and those round Abydus by Thracians; and still before these two by Bebryces and Dryopes. And the country that lies next was colonized by the Treres, themselves also Thracians; and the Plain of Thebe by Lydians, then called Maeonians, and by the survivors of the Mysians who had formerly been subject to Telephus and Teuthras. (Strabo).

IDEA: Good recording for Asia Minor would mean a good enough for Italy...

Italy by -900: Golaseca in the NW (Urnfield); Este in the NE (Urnfield); Villanova in Tuscany, Campania and Emilia-Romagna (Urnfield); Iapigue Culture in the south Adriatic regions; Pit Grave Culture in the south.

INFO: The Mycenian burials included incineration as well as pit graves.

THUCYDIDES, HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS (VOL.II - BOOK VI): "It [Sicily] was inhabited in old time, thus; and these were the nations that held it. Cyclopes and Læstrigones. The most ancient inhabitants in a part thereof, are said to have been the Cyclopes and Læstrigones: of whose stock, and whence they came or to what place they removed, I have nothing to say. Let that suffice which the poets have spoken, and which every particular man hath learned of them. Sicanians.After them, the first that appear to have dwelt therein, are the Sicanians, as they say themselves; nay, before the other, as being the natural breed of the island. But the truth is, they were Iberians; and driven away by the Ligyans [Ligurians] from the banks of Sicanus [Júcar River in Valencia], a river on which they were seated in Iberia. Sicania, Trinacria. And the island from them came to be called Sicania, which was before Trinacria. And these [two] inhabit yet in the western parts of Sicily. Trojans. After the taking of Ilium certain Trojans, escaping the hands of the Grecians, landed with small boats in Sicily: and having planted themselves on the borders of the Sicanians, both the nations in one were called Elymi; and their cities were Eryx and Egesta. Hard by these came and dwelled also certain Phoceans, who coming from Troy, were by tempest carried first into Afric, and thence into Sicily. Siculi. But the Siculi passed out of Italy, (for there they inhabited), flying from the Opici [Oscans], having, as is most likely and as it is reported, observed the strait, and with a fore wind gotten over in boats which they made suddenly on the occasion, or perhaps by some other means. [...] There is at this day a people in Italy called Siculi."

ELYMI = IBERIAN SICANI + TROJAN

In northwestern Sicily were the Elimi. Only fragments of the Elimi language has been found, none longer than twelve letters, written in Greek characters of the fifth century. What does remain cannot rule out Elimi as an Indo-European language, posing the interesting possibility of an Indo-European people in the western Mediterranean prior to -2000.

Diodorus Siculus, Library: At the time that Dionysius who had their homes in the regions beyond the Alps [the Celts] streamed through the passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Apennine mountains and the Alps, expelling the Tyrrhenians who dwelt there. These, according to some, were colonists from the twelve cities of Tyrrhenia; but others state that before the Trojan War Pelasgians fled from Thessaly to escape the flood of Deucalion's time [refered to arrival of Hellenic invasors, descendants of Decaulion ?] and settled in this region.

IDEA: That would point to an effective and complete colonization from Greece and Asia Minor of Hellenics, Pelasgians and Tyrrhenians of the whole Italic Peninsula (including islands).

Pausanias, Description of Greece: The disputants agreed to refer the matter to the Delphic oracle, and the Pythian priestess gave the kingdom of Athens to Medon. So Neileus and the rest of the sons of Codrus set out to found a colony, taking with them any Athenian who wished to go with them, but the greatest number of their company was composed of Ionians. This was the third expedition sent out from Greece under kings of a race different from that of the common folk. The earliest was when Iolaus of Thebes, the nephew of Heracles, led the Athenians and Thespians [both are Greek cities] to Sardinia.

Strabo: "and it is precisely these districts [of Sardinia] that are continually ravaged by those mountaineers who are now called Diagesbes; in earlier times, however, their name was Iolaës; for Iolaüs, it is said, came hither, bringing with him some of the children of Heracles, and took up his abode with the barbarians who held the island (the latter were Tyrrheni). Later on, the Phoenicians of Carthage got the mastery over them, and along with them carried on war against the Romans; but upon the defeat of the Phoenicians, everything became subject to the Romans. There are four tribes of the mountaineers, the Parati, the Sossinati, the Balari, and the Aconites, and they live in caverns; but if they do hold a bit of land that is fit for sowing, they do not sow even this diligently; instead, they pillage the lands of the farmers - not only of the farmers [Punics ?] on the island, but they actually sail against the people on the opposite coast, the Pisatae in particular."

IDEA: The fact that Strabo does not mention Sardinians as a tribe, would point that these Ioalës could be identified as such, being also a wandering Sea People.

Ilians: Sardinian tribe, descended from Trojans (Paus. 10.17.7, 9), who derives them from a portion of the companions of Aeneas, who settled in the island, and remained there in quiet until they were compelled by the [Punic] Africans, who subsequently occupied the coasts of Sardinia, to take refuge in the more rugged and inaccessible mountain districts of the interior. This tale has evidently originated in the resemblance of the name of Ilienses, in the form which the Romans gave it, to that of the Trojans. Many writers have identified the Ilienses with the Iolaenses or Iolai, who are also placed in the interior of Sardinia.

-1500/-500 Nuraghe Culture in Sardinia and Corsica.

Some of the pre-Etruscan material found in Sardinia may have been a reciprocal of this commerce; however, most of the contacts between Sardinia and the Villanovan world were more likely carried on by native central Italians and Sardinians, for Villanovan material is widely distributed at nuragic sites in the interior of the island in contrast with later imports from Etruria during the subsequent Punic period that are always or almost always found in association with Punic material. It has been suggested that Sardinians preceded Greek colonists in utilizing the mineral resources of Etruria. Three Sardinian bronzes found in the Cavalupo tomb at Vulci have been interpreted as evidence for a (surely not unique) marriage relationship between Sardinian and Villanovan aristocrats.

IDEA: then the Shardes Sea People is related to the Tyrrhenians (with some Greek component also), and that they might have practiced husbandry since they did not profite the conquered fertile lands to sow. Moreover, being the Tyrrhenians Lydian colonizers, in Lydia there is also Sardis city...

Sardinian romance points to have a non IE substratum.

The most celebrated peoples of this island [Corsica] are the Ilienses , the Balari [Iberians from Balears], and the Corsi [blend of Lygurian and Iberian]; and among its eighteen towns, [...] Said by Pausanias to have been [the Ilienses] descended from persons who escaped on the fall of Troy under the command of Iolaüs. (Pliny).

ILIENSES = IOLAËS, there after -1200

At Ancona begins the coast of that part of Gaul known as Gallia Togata [North Italy, Po Bassin]. The Siculi [Epiro-Macedonians, also Pelasgians] and the Liburni possessed the greater part of this district, and more particularly the territories of Palma, of Praetutia, and of Adria. These were expelled by the Umbri [Italics], these again by the Etrurians, and these in their turn by the Gauls. (Pliny).

We next come to the overflowing mouths [of the Po River] of Carbonaria, and the Fosses of Philistina. (Pliny).

So called from the Philisteai, said to have been the ancient inhabitants of the spot. (Pliny).

Strabo: "And there are traces of the expedition of Jason, and of the Colchians who pursued him, as far as Crete and Italy and the Adriatic Sea".

In Albania Pliny refers: "[...] Olcinium, formerly called Colchinium, having been founded by the Colchians; the river Drilo , and, upon it, Scodra [...] Upon the coast too is the town of Oricum, founded by the Colchians." (Pliny).

[...] and the colony of Pola [now Pula in Croatia], now Pietas Julia, formerly founded by the Colchians, [...] with Mantua, the only city of the Tuscans now left beyond the Padus. Cato informs us that the Veneti are descendants of the Trojans , and that the Cenomanni dwelt among the Volcæ in the vicinity of Massilia. (Pliny).

Strabo: "In another place Callimachus speaks about the Colchians, who 'stayed their oars in the Sea of Illyria beside the tomb-stone of blonde Harmonia, and there built a little city, which a Greek would call 'the city of the exiles,' but which their language has named Polae'. Some say that Jason and his companions even sailed up the Ister [Danube] a considerable distance, while others say that he ascended as far as the Adriatic Sea; the former make their statement in ignorance of these regions, whereas the latter make the assertion that a river Ister branches off from the great Ister and empties into the Adriatic Sea; but apart from this, what they say is neither improbable nor incredible."

Padua was said to have been founded by the Trojan Antenor. (Pliny).

Herodotus and Strabo tell of Lydians landing at the mouth of the Po and crossing the Apennines into Etruria. Thus it seems certain that although the earliest immigrants may have come down from the north, they were joined by a migration from the east before they had developed a civilization of their own.

IDEA: The Trojan War was for the classics with the same symbolic load that have nowadays Pearl Harbor: from then the world and the war changed absolutely (Atomic bomb, Cold War, the meance of Comminism, etc.).

Genoa has the legend that was founded by Janus, prince of Troy.

Anchises would be buried in Sicily.

SOUTH ITALY AND SICILY

Greek writers mention several tribes in south Italy, by the names of Chones, Morgetes, and Itali, all of whom they regarded as of the same race with the Oenotrians; the two former being expressly called Oenotrian tribes [Chones, Morgentes], while the name of Itali was, according to the account generally received, applied to the Oenotrians in general: Antiochus of Syracuse distinctly spoke of the Oenotri and Itali as the same people; Virgil, represented the Oenotrians as taking the name of Italians, from a chief or king of the name of Italus [along change of language ?].

OENOTRIANS = CHONES = MORGENTES = ITALI

There seems no doubt that the Oenotrians were a Pelasgic race, akin to the population of Epirus and the adjoining tract on the E. of the Adriatic. This was evidently the opinion of those Greek writers who represented Oenotrus as one of the sons of Lycaon, the son of Pelasgus, who emigrated from Arcadia at a very early period. (Pherecydes, ap. Dionys. i. 13; Paus. viii. 3. § 5.) The statement of Pausanias, that this was the most ancient migration of which he had any knowledge, shows that the Oenotrians were considered by the Greeks as the earliest inhabitants of the Italian peninsula. But a more conclusive testimony is the incidental notice in Stephanus of Byzantium, that the Greeks in Southern Italy called the native population, whom they had reduced to a state of serfdom like the Penestae in Thessaly and the Helots in Laconia, by the name of Pelasgi. These serfs could be no other than the Oenotrians. Other arguments for their Pelasgic origin may be deduced from the recurrence of the same names in Southern Italy and in Epirus, as the Chones and Chaones, Pandosia, and Acheron, etc.

IDEA: So by such migration, the original Oenotrian language surely was not Italic: they came from the Epirus.

OENOTRIANS = PELASGIANS = EPIRO-MACEDONIANS

IDEA: The date for such a migration would correspond to around -1200 after the Trojan War and the consequent invasion of the Greek Dorians over the Pelasgian tribes of Greece, so that such tribes would have been pushed to leave the country.

At the Silarus begins the third region of Italy, consisting of the territory of Lucania and Bruttium; here too there have been no few changes of the population. These districts have been possessed by the Pelasgi, the Œnotrii, the Itali, the Morgetes, the Siculi, and more especially by people who emigrated from Greece, and, last of all, by the Leucani, a people sprung from the Samnites, who took possession under the command of Lucius. (Pliny).

In southern Calabria there was a local cultus of Phersephatta at Locri, Medma, and Hipponion, with examples of its spread to Croton and Caulonia, and to Sicily at Syracusa, Naxos, and Selinus. Phersephatta appears only in Greek colonies of Magna Graecia where the Siculi were located, and the only other place where her name is found is at Corinth.

Then there is a region in Campania where Protovillanova and Villanova cultures are found, prior to the historical arrival of Etruscans to the region in the sixth century. But the Villanovan deposits in that area then ended. At Picentia (Pontecagnano) cemetaries attest to local developments from the ninth to the middle of the sixth centuries. [Villanova = Etruscan].

The Sabellian races of the Lucanians and Bruttians conquered the Oenotrian territory. [true Italic tribes].

Menesteus, oficial of the Athenians said to have founded after the battle of Troy the city of Skylakion (Esquilace) in south Italy.

IDEA: Mycenians (or Achaeans), then also migrating, being so the first real Greek settlers in South Italy, and maybe preventing it the arrival of the Lydians/Etruscans in South Italy ? Note that the Achaians were seen as Pelasgians by the classic writters.

This territory [Campania], a battle-ground as it were for the gratification of every luxurious pleasure of man, has been held successively by the Osci [Italic tribe], the Greeks, the Umbri [Italic tribe], the Tusci [Etruscans, -VI Century], and the Campani [Italic tribe]. (Pliny).

The Sea Peoples from Anatolia were conformed according to the Egyptian documentation of Ekmesh (a name that the Hittites used for the "Ahhiyawa", the Acheans), Teresh (Tyrrhenians, ancestors of the Estruscans), Sardinians, Shekelesh (after in Sicily) and Pelest, the future Philistines/Palestines.

According to the Victory Stela found near Thebes, the Sea People destroyed the Hittite kingdom, and consisted of the following peoples or clans: Shardana [Sardinians], Lukka [Lycians], Meshwesh [Meoinians ?], Teresh [Tirrenians], Ekwesh [Acheans...] and Shekelesh [Siculs]. Palestines and the future Phoenicians. The Ekwesh have been identified with the Ahhiyawa of Hittite records, who were almost certainly Achaean Greeks colonizing the western coast of Anatolia, as well as the Aegean Islands, etc.

The Morgetes are noticed by several ancient writers among the earliest inhabitants of the south part of the peninsula, in connection with the Oenotrians, Itali, and Siculi. Antiochus of Syracuse represented the Siculi, Morgetes and Italietes as all three of Oenotrian race; and derived their names, according to the favourite Greek custom, from three successive rulers of the Oenotrians, of whom Italus was the first, Merges the second, and Siculus the third. (Strabo).

IDEA: That would mean that the Shekels lost their language in Sicily ? Or that were part of a Pelasgian / Oenotrian tribe, and as invaders from Alabania/Greece they were considered as a Sea People, see below.

In Albania Pliny refers: "the Siculotæ with 24 [decurions], and the Vardæi, once the scourges of Italy, with no more than 20 decuries. In addition to these, this district was possessed by the Ozuæi, the Partheni, the Hemasini, the Arthitæ, and the Armistæ." (Pliny).

IDEA: Again a possible indication of a Pelasgian or Epiro-Macedonian origin of the Siculs.

Pausanias, Description of Greece: "Sicily is inhabited by the following races: Sicanians, Sicels, and Phrygians; the first two crossed into it from Italy, while the Phrygians came from the river Scamander and the land of the Troad. The Phoenicians and Libyans came to the island on a joint expedition, and are settlers from Carthage. Such are the foreign races in Sicily. The Greeks settled there include Dorians and Ionians, with a small proportion of Phocians and of Attics."

According to Antiochus, the Siceli and Morgetes had in early times inhabited the whole of this region [South Italy], but later on, being ejected by the Oenotrians, had crossed over into Sicily. (Strabo).

IDEA: The Morgentes speaking a similar language (or the same) as that of the Sicules, would have been fussioned with the later.

The Adriatic cultures were diverse Iron Age cultures practicing inhumation [since -1000], the Picenes of the Marches and an Illyrian people were in close contact and may in fact have been a trans-Adriatic culture, just as the Neolithic cultures of Apulia were an extension from the Balkans. By the time we begin to hear of the other inhumation cultures of the Apennines, from Greek and then from Latin sources, they can be identified with various Osco-Umbrian tribes. The sources refer to the Opici (Obsci, Osci) occupying a large portion of southern Italy prior to the arrival of the Samnites. While the Opici gave their name to the Oscan speaking tribes it really is not certain if they or the Ausones were an Italic speaking people or a pre-Italic people.

Fossa Grave pottery was handmade, plain, dark and burnished, in forms characteristic of the earlier Apennine culture, found in Campania, Calabria and Sicily. When the Romans arrived in the area these sites were occupied by tribes of an Oscan-speaking people.

Expansion of the Oscan-speaking people from the central Apennines beginning in the fifth century then displaced the Greeks and Etruscans over most of southern Italy. Further south expansion of the Oscans overtook Campania (c. 450-420), Lucania (c. 420-390), and Brutttania (c. 350), dominating the pre-Italic people of the regions.

IDEA: few invaders could be difficult to track archaeologicaly since being a new elite they would profit the already native culture: they would not make pottery per example.

-1200/-1050 Achaeans in Cyprus from the Greek mainland; refugees from the Mycenean disaster, these will be the first Greek settlers on Sicily.

Pseudo-Scyllax Periplus: "5. TYRRHENOI [Etruscans]. And from Antion the Tyrrhenian nation as far as the city of Rome. The coastal voyage of four days and four nights. [...] And in Sicily are the following barbarian nations: Elymians, Sikanians, Sikels, Phoenicians, Trojans. Now these are barbarians, but Hellenes also live here."

IDEA: There the Trojans would be the Phrygians, as ethnic origin or as geographic origin.

THUCYDIDES, HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS (VOL.II - BOOK VI): "It [Sicily] was inhabited in old time, thus; and these were the nations that held it. Cyclopes and Læstrigones. The most ancient inhabitants in a part thereof, are said to have been the Cyclopes and Læstrigones: of whose stock, and whence they came or to what place they removed, I have nothing to say. Let that suffice which the poets have spoken, and which every particular man hath learned of them. Sicanians.After them, the first that appear to have dwelt therein, are the Sicanians, as they say themselves; nay, before the other, as being the natural breed of the island. But the truth is, they were Iberians; and driven away by the Ligyans [Ligurians] from the banks of Sicanus [Júcar River in Valencia], a river on which they were seated in Iberia. Sicania, Trinacria. And the island from them came to be called Sicania, which was before Trinacria. And these [two] inhabit yet in the western parts of Sicily. Trojans. After the taking of Ilium certain Trojans, escaping the hands of the Grecians, landed with small boats in Sicily: and having planted themselves on the borders of the Sicanians, both the nations in one were called Elymi; and their cities were Eryx and Egesta. Hard by these came and dwelled also certain Phoceans, who coming from Troy, were by tempest carried first into Afric, and thence into Sicily. Siculi. But the Siculi passed out of Italy, (for there they inhabited), flying from the Opici [Oscans ?], having, as is most likely and as it is reported, observed the strait, and with a fore wind gotten over in boats which they made suddenly on the occasion, or perhaps by some other means. [...] There is at this day a people in Italy called Siculi."

IDEA: the Ziharriya mentioned in Hittite texts as a Kaskan region, would have something to say about the origin of the Sicarians ??

Francesco Ribezzo published in 1933 an inscription supposedly Sicanian found near Caltagirone, and dated by -VI which is written in Greek alphabet. Some authors think that such language has IE influences, or even is IE, but for other scholars, as the Italian G. Devoto, words as nendas, tebeg, pra arei, pagosti kealte, inrubo are difficult to be taken as Indoeuropean.

IDEA: if that would be Elymian it would fit perfectly in the old traditions, as they were a mix of Trojans and Iberian natives.

The first city is Croton [Crotone], within one hundred and fifty stadia from the Lacinium; and then comes the River Aesarus, and a harbor, and another river, the Neaethus. The Neaethus got its name, it is said, from what occurred there: Certain of the Achaeans who had strayed from the Trojan fleet put in there and disembarked for an inspection of the region, and when the Trojan women who were sailing with them learned that the boats were empty of men, they set fire to the boats, for they were weary of the voyage, so that the men remained there of necessity, although they at the same time noticed that the soil was very fertile. And immediately several other groups, on the strength of their racial kinship, came and imitated them, and thus arose many settlements, most of which took their names from the Trojans; and also a river, the Neaethus, took its appellation from the aforementioned occurrence. (Strabo).

ILLYRIANS AS MESSAPIANS

-1200 Illyrians arrive at South Italy. Inscriptions discovered in south-eastern Italy, written in one of Italic alphabets, were identified as using the language similar to Illyrian. After Illyrians occupied the regions of Dalmatia and reached the Adriatic shores, they crossed the narrow sea space and found themselves in Italy. This migration is believed to take place together with similar mo ves of Italic tribes from the Balkans to Italy - the second Italic wave-, including Osco-Umbrian peoples. Illyrians also settled on the Apennine peninsula, and lived there until they were completely assimilated by Roman settlers. This Illyrian branch was called Messapic by ancient authors. Nowadays we can state that the Messapic language was rather different from Illyrian: first of all in lexical composition, where it shows many "italianisms" [by substrate ?].

The Illyrian and Messapian are supposed to be close languages, as historical testimonies and archaeological evidences point to an Illyrian origin of the Messapians. In the other side the linguistic evidence is scarce to confirm that since there are not Illyrian inscriptions left, and Illyrian characteristics are based in personal names (anthoponymy) and place names (toponymy).

It is quite certain that Messapic is of Illyrian descent, having been brought over across the Adriatic as attested in classical authors.

Still later a migration from Illyria is thought to have brought the Messapic language to Apulia in the seventh century. Messapian is an Indo-European language, Illyrian rather than Italian.

By the eighth century Greek traders began to arrive, and in the seventh century Messapians came from Illyria into Apulia. Iron forges have been found in the southern region that show the Iron Age had already begun prior to the arrival of the Greeks and Messapians. In Campania, Calabria, and Sicily there was the Fossa Grave culture, while in Apulia there was a distinctly different Iron Age culture. However even after the new arrivals, features in the indigenous material culture still resembled that of the Apennine culture from the Italian Bronze Age.

IDEA: That would point to a more early arrival of the Illyrian tribes to Apulia, maybe by -1200. The Fossa Grave could correspond to the Pelasgian tribes.

IDEA: The fact that a Illyrian tribe occupied the Po Basin before the Italics point to an early date: maybe -1100 ? Also that such tribe occupied the Po Bassin, and that the Massapics occupied the Adriatic coast would point to a territorial unity in Italy.

CONCLUSION

IDEA: If the Illyrians dwelt in classic Illyria before the spread of the Urnfield peoples (supposedly Illyro-Celto-Italics), then it would be understood better the history of Italy: since the Urnfield peoples were invading North Italy by -1200, also they were pushing Illyrian tribes in the Balkans that surely needed to immigrate to survive (to the Adriatic coast of Italy: Messapians). The same pressures that received Illyrians were also evident for Epirots (Pelasgians) and indirectly for Anatolic peoples (Lydians); such pressures led to the migration westwards of such peoples by -1200 occupying Central and South Italy (mainly the Tyrrhenian side, that was yet free of Illyrian occupation). As the Etruscans would have found Italic tribes in Central Italy by then, such tribes could have remained there as could have emigrated to conquer new lands: the unique way was southwards following the Appenine ranges. The sharp difference between North Italy and the rest about cremation rites or burial rites in Italy would be motivated by such different peopling.

P-CELTS

A new Iron Age culture, that of the Gauls, entered in the fourth century. The Este culture [Venetics] was pushed out of the western Po valley at that time, and the Golasecca culture [Lepontians] essentially ended.

INFO: From then, the classic authors name the Western Po Basin as Galia Cisalpina.

INFO: The Celts were able to plunder Rome itself excepting the Capitolium (-387). After that, the Romans erect new walls and ally with other Italic tribes, preventing so a further southwards expansion of the Celtic languages.

Celts / La Tene Culture conquer West Europe (Spain, France, Britain, Portugal) from their center in South Germany [iron makes them strong], occupy since -400 the Po Bassin and push southwards, but the Romans can stop them. In the East: Austria, Bohemia, Slovakia, Pannonian plains, Central Turkey, and some enclaves in the Balkans that carry there the Celtic language.

The Gauls invaded the Etruscan colonies in the Po valley and sacked central Italy.

GALLO-ITALIAN DIALECTS (Lombard, Piemontese, Emilian above all): Nel vocalismo tonico spicca anzitutto la potenziale dittongazione di tutte le vocali toniche in posizione libera: i tipi reto-cisalpini mär (növ) concordano pienamente con il francese mer, poil, saveur, miei, neuf, mentre discordano dalle forme mare, pelo, sapore, mele, nove del toscano popolare e dei dialetti metafonizzanti della Penisola stricto sensu. Sono caratteristiche di gran parte della Padania i fonemi palatali ü (lat. U) e ö (üo < uo < lat. O); probabili riflessi dell’antico sostrato gallico del paese: nelle zone centrali e occidentali si pronuncia infatti mür, cör, più o meno come in francese (mur, coeur), e tali suoni sono indigeni in Padania e non "stranieri" o "francesi" come credono tanti. Il padanese, come il francese, ha sviluppato una serie di vocali nasali toniche, così i tipi paun/pan, serein, bon (bõ), vin (vi) corrispondono al fr. pain, serein, bon, vin. Ma il tratto più importante del vocalismo del padanese quale lingua galloromanza è senz’altro la caduta regolare di tutte le vocali atone finali eccetto -a: camp ‘campo’, part ‘parte’, quist ‘questi’ (ma pòrta, fenèstra).

Profonde differenze strutturali segnano pure il sistema consonantico del gruppo reto-cisalpino di fronte all’italiano. Oltre allo scempiamento delle doppie (copa ‘coppa’, maza ‘ammazza’) e all’indebolimento delle scempie intervocaliche LATINU ladin, SECURU segur, SUDARE suar, SCALA scara), sono da notarsi l’ormai rara palatalizzazione spontanea (nell’ovest) o reattiva (nell’est) delle velari (castel, gat, formiga) e tendenze fonetiche quali la soluzione galloromanza dei nessi -ct-, -cs- (-x-) (FACTU fait, fac, LAXARE laissar, lašar), la riduzione di -gli- a -j- (fója ‘foglia’, aj ‘aglio’) e la desonorizzazione delle finali (neiv neif ‘neve’, verd vert ‘verde’).

IDEA: As such characteristics are common with French (Gaulish substrate), and with High German (Celtic substrate), and other languages that have been affected by Celt, such characteristics would be the product of a P-Celtic language that acted as substrate.

INFO: The Gallo-Italian dialects follow the "Italic" solution in transforming PL-, FL-, CL- in pi-, fi-, chi-. By Italic influence it seems that such dialects have elliminated final -s to indicate the plurals.

At Ancona begins the coast of that part of Gaul known as Gallia Togata [North Italy, Po Bassin]. The Siculi [Pelasgians] and the Liburni [Illyians] possessed the greater part of this district, and more particularly the territories of Palma, of Praetutia, and of Adria. These were expelled by the Umbri, these again by the Etrurians, and these in their turn by the Gauls. (Pliny).

Diodorus Siculus, Library: At the time that Dionysius was besieging Rhegium, the Celts who had their homes in the regions beyond the Alps streamed through the passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Apennine mountains and the Alps, expelling the Tyrrhenians who dwelt there. (6.58)

IDEA: The invasion of the Gauls represented the loss of the northern colonies, so leaving such Etruscan to emigrate southwards or northwards. But those that were in the Tuscani, in loosing their northern bases of trade also lost much of their economic power and then also strenght, leaving it place to a little tribe to get the region some years after: the Latini.

Friulian language: Very close to French in its evolutive characteristics (Celtic substrate), diverges in the conservation of the groups ST and SC (chastel, mescla); or in the diptongation of the Latin short E and O (BELLO biel, VOSTRO vuostri; FORTE fuart; TERRA tiare); or in the reduction of the Latin group -CT- to t (LACTE lat).

DALMATIAN: Similar to the Italian (in being a very conservative language); but innovative in diptongation (PORTA puerta; TERRA tiara); and similar in CT t as in other groups.

IDEA: It seems that the Friulian Romance was based in a Celtic Gaulish substrate that affected so much Friulian, but that even its substrate could have been affected, by sure, by another IE language, the same that affected Dalmatian, and such language could not be other than (Veneto)-Illyrian.

Nella Padania Orientale si assiste a partire dal V sec. aC ad infiltrazioni celtiche, provenienti dalla valle della Drava e discendenti lungo il Piave. Significativo a questo proposito è l’insediamento di Altino, dove sono emerse tombe di guerrieri galli, tutte ad inumazione, collocabili tra la fine del IV sino al I sec. aC.

L’area veneto-friulana vede il progressivo infiltrarsi di popolazioni celtiche, che culminerà con la discesa dei Carni nel -186 aC, popolazione celtica proveniente dall’Austria.

La prima data storica riconosciuta ufficialmente per questo territorio [Friul] senza nome è quella riportata da Tito Livio: "In quello stesso anno (-181) fu in terra di Galli fondata la città di Aquileia" (L. XL- c.34).

Strabo: "Directly after these people come the peoples that dwell near the recess of the Adriatic and the districts round about Aquileia [Friul region in NE Italy], namely, the Carni as well as certain of the Norici [a Celtic tribe]; the Taurisci, also, belong to the Norici."

VENETIC DIALECT: It follows the main Italian characteristics, but with some major exceptions as the sonorization of intervocalic PTK, the group LI becomes j (ALIO ajo); group SCI s, consonantic sonority, and loss of final -E (PANE pan).

IDEA: In not displaying the Venetic romance any Celtic characteristics it is to doubt and to confirm that the Celts did not hold that region.

MAP appears in a new window after clicking here displaying the linguistic situation in the Italian Penninsula by -250.

LYGURIANS, THE CELTIBERIANS OF ITALY

Pseudo-Scyllax Periplus: "4. LIGYES. From Rhodanos [Rhoine, near Marseilles] river there adjoin Ligyans as far as Antion. [...]" [written around -550].

IDEA: Ligurians or Lyges (for the Greeks) were related to the Anatolian Lyges ? (As the Epirotian Siculs are related to Sicilians, or the Shardians are related to Sardinia).

IDEA: "Lygi" are linked to "Lelegi"... ?

De facto there are three languages that can be named as "Lygurian": the ancient Lygurian, possibly a non-Indoeuropean language, the Celtic Lygurian (or Lepontic), and the modern Lyguian, which is a dialect of the Italian. There are not Old Lygurian inscriptions left, so that such language only can be recognized from anthroponymy and toponymy [and yet by actual phonetics].

INFO: No Bell Beaker presence in most of actual Lyguria.

Nell’Antica Età del Bronzo (tra la fine del III millennio ed il XVII secolo a.C.) gran parte della Padania appare uniformata dalla Cultura di Polada, che ha la sua massima attestazione negli abitati palafitticoli benacensi (tra cui la stazione eponima), ma che risulta estesa con notevole unità di caratteri, dalla Lombardia all’Emilia Romagna, dal Trentino al Veneto. Normalmente divisa tra Cultura Terramaricola (Emilia) e Palafitticola (Veneto, Lombardia Orientale più la zona dei laghi prealpini), essa si contraddistinguerà inoltre per l’introduzione del rito della cremazione dei defunti, le cui ceneri venivano raccolte in urne senza alcun corredo, sistemate l’una presso l’altra, in necropoli nelle vicinanze dei villaggi.

INFO: Presence among Palaphitics of statues-stelae of heroes, with swords (almost identical to the Tartessian steles).

A questa prima fase del Bronzo, sembra restare estranea la Padania Occidentale [including the Liguria], che resta profondamente legata alla cultura megalitica e mantiene contatti commerciali con la Savoia e la Provenza sino al Rodano.

INFO: So there was not supposed IE presence in Lyguria and West Padania (Po Basin) by then.

Fuori dalla Padania [Po Basin] in Corsica, reperti ceramici riferibili alla Cultura di Polada, manifestazioni megalitiche e aspetti cultuali (incinerazione dei defunti).

INFO: So Corsica could have received a first IE influence by then; nowadays the Corsica speaks a Toscan dialect.

INFO: Corsica received the Urnfield Culture (!).

IDEA: Then also received a second sure IE wave.

Before the Gaulish invasion, the Lygurians dwelt in a wide territory that included the Provence, the Liguria, Corsica, and the occidental part of the Po Bassin.

INFO: Golasecca area (IX to V): From the Alps till the Po; from Novara till Bergamo (almost actual Lombardia). Use of Lepontic alphabet (based in the Etruscan one) from VI till V to wirte the Lepontic language in the Golasecca's area; after to write the Gallic.

Alle necropoli ligure è sicuramente riferibile quella di Chiavari (Genova), databile tra l’VIII e il VI sec. aC; essa costituisce l’esempio più antico di sepolcreto ligure (ritrovamenti di urne incineranti singole, sono segnalati a partire dal XIII sec. aC), il cui modello continuerà con alcune varianti, sino ad epoca romana.

INFO: The Urnfield culture hold also actual Liguria.

LIGURIAN DIALECT: The Lepontic substrate has left Celtic phonetics in the actual Romance speech as ü or ö, or the lenition of some vocal endings. But also shares with other Mediterranean languages some non-Indoeuropean (Bascoid ?) features: intervocalic R is lost (AURO ou; COLORE co; CAELO se; COLOMBO conbo); in groups L+consonat the phonetic value is changed (ALTARE arta; CABALCARE cabarca; SEPULTURA seportua; VOLTA votta; ALTRI atri; CALDO cado; DOLCE dose); the group L+iod evolves to a dj sound (FILIO fidjo; MELIORE medjo); also when L is after the consonant it is changed as happens in the intial groups PL-, FL-, CL-, and even BL-, which have been pallatized (PLANO chan; PLUVIA cheuve; FLAMA schamme; CLARO chao; BLANCO jancu), or in interior groups (UNG'LA unge; VET'LA veja). The Latin V is lost (VENTO ento) and the B sound is changed to "m" as mannana from bannana (per example in Basque the Latin VENA (bena) was reshaped as "mea"; intervocalic R lost (MESURA mezua; TORTURA tortoa). The dialect even shares with Iberian languages some lexic (bazure for "witch" is in Spanish bruja, in Portuguese bruxa, and in Catalan bruixa). Also the non-IE toponymy is strikingly similar (Benasque in the Pyrinees, Benasco in the Alps).

CONCLUSION: The non-IE language known as Lygurian (but better to name it pre-Lygurian) might have been akin to Basque, pointing that the historic Lygurians would have keept much of their Neolithic language, and mixed it with the IE Celto-Italic that arrived with the Urnfield culture.

The material to know the Lygurian is scarce, only some Lepontic inscriptions, from a Lygurian tribe that dwelt in the south Alps, the Lepontics; the linguists recognize that there are two strates, one non-IE and another IE.

INFO: La Tene Culture in north Italy (the Gaulish Celts) did not held neither Liguria, nor the Veneto, but arrived till Rimini.

INFO: And that as can be seen in the section about P-Celtics below, affected the substrate language of the regional dialects surely lowering the amount of non-IE characteristics (3 IE waves: Polada, Urnfield and La Tene).

The arrival of the Gauls in the fourth century brought an end to the Golasecca culture, but Lygurians remained in a very narrow territory along the coast between the Apennines and the Gulf of Genoa when the Romans arrived.

Nella Francia del sud-est, Greci prima e Galli poi, saranno la causa di tre secoli di dure lotte, come gli oltre 300 castellari stanno a dimostrare. Più ad est un sistema complesso e capillare di castellari, occupante le cime dei crinali posti fra le valli Roia e Nervia e costruito dal V al III sec. aC, dal mare sino a quota 1268 metri, fu la formidabile barriera che fermò definitivamente i Greci di Marsiglia e le ondate galliche, che non riuscirono a superare il colle della Turbia sopra Monaco.

By the III Century BC, the Lygurian was spoken only in the actual Lyguria [as much of the ancient Lygurian territories were held by the Gauls]; its linguistic phyliation is not clear as only can be supposed by toponymy and some few words.

IDEA/CONCLUSION: Bascoids + Celto-Italics from Urnfield = Lygurians substrate for actual Lygurian romance in a similar way as the Iberians + Celto-Italics from Urnfield = Celtiberians (which is not goodly understood yet). Then Lygurians + Celtics (Gaulish tribes) from La Tene = Galia Togata substrate for actual Padanian romance dialects. Such scheme then also would confirm that at least in the Lyguria, a Bascoid language was spoken before the arrival of the IE, confirming that the link Cardial Culture = Bascoid languages.

IDEA: Another possibility would be to adscribe to the Old Lygurians and Anatolian origin, that would spread over Italic tribes, a similar case to that of Tuscany, where the Urnfield derived to Villanova.

A remain of Lygurian presence are the placenames ended in -asco/-asca (Cherasco, Bogliasco...).

INFO: -asco/-asca toponymy region: Lombardia, Piemonte, Val d'Aosta, Liguria, Toscan Appeninnes and South Provence (from Barcelonette downwards).

In conclusione il suffisso -ATE andrebbe ad aggiungersi al conosciutissimo -ASCO/A nell’elenco dei formanti d’origine ligure e non è certamente un caso se quest’ultimo appaia diffuso soprattutto in Lombardia con 106 toponimi, seguita dal Piemonte con 93, dalla Liguria con 33, dall’Emilia con 19 e dalla Lunigiana con 7, oltre ad essere presente in Spagna, Portogallo, Francia Sudorientale e Irlanda.

IDEA: Such areas seem related the Urnfield maximal persistence.

Per quanto riguarda il legame fra -asco e i liguri noi sappiamo che -asco era usato in epoca romana nei territori occupati dei liguri. Il suffisso -asco era usato per derivare un toponimo da un altro toponimo. Tuttavia, il suffisso -asco ha continuato ad essere usato, in particolare nel periodo germanico. Poiché le popolazioni germaniche, come suffisso di derivazione, avevano -isco che a dato -esco in italiano (esempio tedesco), dove c'era il suffisso -asco le popolazioni germaniche anziché usare il loro suffisso hanno recuperato il vecchio. Questo spiega il perché di bergamasco e cremasco dove i liguri non ci sono mai stati. Inoltre, il suffisso in -asco è stato utilizzato fino al XIII secolo. Non è, pertanto, un segno sicuro di liguricità.

Celtiberian endings based on -(i)asco: as in Kontrebia Belaisca -old Celtiberian city that was related to the tribe of Beli, well-known by its old texts, found in recent excavations- or with many Celtic words found in modern Spanish: carrasco, -of carro-, churrasco, -of churro-, ternasco, -of tierno-, etc., predominant in Aragon and the eastern area of Castile.

INFO: The Urnfield Culture hold actual Aragon in Spain.

IDEA: But that would confirm that some toponymy could be linked with Lygurian presence (if we understan the Lygurian as a mix of Q-Celtic and Bascoid languages...).

IBERIAN MIGRATIONS OR COMMON CARDIAL SUBSTRATE ?

By -2500 the burial technique to bury two or more people in the same unique cist arrived to Sicily (a technique that was used by then commonly in Spain). In the other side, the individual sepultures inside of artificial caves (also practiced in Spanish regions) will be in use till the hellenization of the island by -V.

-2200/-1900 Ozieri Culture in Sardinia and Corsica, intermingled with Mediterranean Bell Beakers.

-1800/-1550 Monte Claro Culture in Sardinia and Corsica, Megalithism in Corsica.

INFO: Please not the above statements about the relatedness of the Lygurian substrate with actual Basque.

Linguistic features of the Paleo-Sardinian language [Nugaric being the present substratum of the Sardinan romance and in toponymy] points out ancient contacts with the Iberian Peninsula...

Sardinia: the first Nuraghi appear by -XVII, and from such epoch the island receives influences from South Italy, Mycenes, Cyprus and Balear Islands.

Strabo: "and it is precisely these districts [of Sardinia] that are continually ravaged by those mountaineers who are now called Diagesbes; in earlier times, however, their name was Iolaës; for Iolaüs, it is said, came hither, bringing with him some of the children of Heracles, and took up his abode with the barbarians who held the island (the latter were Tyrrheni). Later on, the Phoenicians of Carthage got the mastery over them, and along with them carried on war against the Romans; but upon the defeat of the Phoenicians, everything became subject to the Romans. There are four tribes of the mountaineers, the Parati, the Sossinati, the Balari, and the Aconites, and they live in caverns; but if they do hold a bit of land that is fit for sowing, they do not sow even this diligently; instead, they pillage the lands of the farmers - not only of the farmers on the island, but they actually sail against the people on the opposite coast, the Pisatae in particular."

Sardinian romance points to have a non IE substratum.

The most celebrated peoples of this island [Corsica] are the Ilienses , the Balari, and the Corsi; and among its eighteen towns, [...] Said by Pausanias to have been [the Ilienses] descended from persons who escaped on the fall of Troy under the command of Iolaüs. (Pliny).

INFO: The Balear Talaiot Culture [Megalithic] linked to Malta and Sardinia [Nuraghi] that would have an Aegean origin.

IDEA: But before Nuraghi or Talaiots were developed, it has been found a common Bell Beaker's presence in such islands...

IDEA: Balari in both islands, from Baleares ? That would point a precise Iberian origin that would explain the Iberian presence there.

The Corsi appear to have derived their origin from Ligurian and Iberian (called by Seneca Hispanic) tribes.

CORSI = BALARI + LYGURIAN ?

According to Pausanias they [the Balari] derived their origin from a body of African or Iberian mercenaries in the service of the Carthaginians, who took refuge in the mountains and there maintained their independence: he adds, that the name of Balari signified fugitives, in the Corsican language. (Pliny).

We have very little information as to the origin of the native population of Corsica, but there seems little doubt that it was derived principally from a Ligurian source. This is the opinion of Seneca, though he tells us that there were some tribes in the island of Spanish or Iberian extraction, whose manners and dress resembled those of the Cantabrians, and appears inclined to regard these as the earliest inhabitants, and the Ligurians as subsequent settlers. Solinus, however, following authors now lost, who had written fully concerning Corsica, expressly ascribes its first population to the Ligurians, and this is confirmed by the legend which derived its name from a Ligurian woman of the name of Corsa, who was fabled to have first discovered and visited its shores. (Pliny).

The Greeks would permit none of them [native Sicilian tribes] to lay hold of the seaboard [of Sicily], but were not strong enough to keep them altogether away from the interior; indeed, to this day the Siceli, the Sicani, the Morgetes, and certain others have continued to live in the island, among whom there used to be Iberians, who, according to Ephorus, were said to be the first barbarian settlers of Sicily. (Strabo).

IDEA: In fact the Sicani was a tribe of supposed Iberian origin (in Valencia region), the Morgentes seems that were of Italic or Pelasgian (Epiro-Macedonian) race, and the Siceli might be the descendants of the Sea People tribe of the Shekels, also Epiro-Macedonian.

In western Sicily were the Sicani. Practically nothing is known of the Sicani language, but their material culture is much like that found in eastern Spain of the same period.

PTOLOMY: The Messeni occupy the northern part of this island, the Herbitae and Catanei the middle, and the southern part the Segestani and Syracusi inhabit.

Silius Italicus over Sicily: "the fields of Sicily were cultivated firstly by peoples arrived from the Pyrinees named Sicani after a river of their land [Júcar or Xúquer River in Valencia, or Cinca]".

IDEA: As the Sicani were natives of Sicily, and after that Trojans mixed with them, they were known as Elymi, the minimal date of arrival of such Sicani is stated: it must be anterior to the Trojan presence, and that presence would date to -1200. The unique cultures that had in common the Pyrinees, Balear Islands, Corsica and Sicily before -1200 was that of the Bell Beakers, that curiously carried there Megalithic culture (Nuraghi, Talaiots, etc. in such islands)...

IDEA: Last time that the archaeological registry was common before -1200 for the Iberian area, the Balears, South Italy (from where came the Sicanians to Sicily), Corsica Island and Sardinia Island was the period that the Bell Beakers appeared there. In fact, the Baleari might have named the islands of Majorca and Minorca after the colonization (as previously it had a Mesolithic culture), but not so the islands of Corsica, Sardinia or Sicily (as Sicanians), that received the names from other (Anatolian ?) nations.

The data about Iberian presence fits so well even at a linguistic level that it seems that the substrate was Ibero-Bascoid (if we accept such family formed by Basque and Iberian).

BASQUE Latin loanwords (or how would sound a Romance that would have sprout from Basques): Initial PTK unpallatized (PACE bake, TEMPORA dembora, CASTELLU gaztelu); Betacism (VIGILATO bigiratu); intervolcalic N lost (VENA mea "mineral", PLANU lau); intervocalic L to r (CAELU zeru, VIGILATUM begiratu); intial PL-, CL-, FL changes to l (PLACET laket ). Occasional loss of intervocalic PTK (MAGISTER maizter), and even in initial position (BUCCELA okela).

SARDINIAN: -LI- z (FILIO fizu, ALIO azu, OLIO ozu), -LT- rt (artu), -LP- rp (curpa), -LB- rb (arbu), -LG- rg (arga < ALGA), CL- PL- and FL- changes l by r (craru, prata, frore in dialects) as Portuguese, also -CL- -GL- to cr and gr (ogrum "eye" or ungra < UNGLA), loss of intervocalic l (PILU piu); -LL- dd (PULLO puddu for "chicken"); Betacism. In dialects even it is found loss of N, a typical Basque trait, or the despalatization of P, T, K initial as does Basque (gani, gai from CANE or ogu from OCULO); some dialects take Latin intervocalic L to a vibrant l similar to a r (TEGULAS teuras), similar as does Basque; even in dialects intitial F- is lost (FARINA arina, FILIO izzu).

IDEA: So the classic statements that there were Iberians (as ethnic or as geographic term) fits with the linguistic situation: that the Latin suffered so much from such Ibero-Basque substratum that has been modified even more than Pyrenaic Aragonese.

SICILIAN: the phonetic changes that differenciate Italian from Latin and other Romance languages occur also in Sicilian (CT t, AU o, ND nn, BL- bi-, CL- ki, etc.). The pure dialectal traits are: vocal simplyfication e i, o u (also present in Lygurian, could have a substrate origin); barbarisms not present in Italian (produced by historic invaders that occupied the island: Arabs, Normands, Catalans, etc.); LT ut (ALTO autu); conserves archaic Italian articulation, and conserves Latin archaisms as "nicu" (mica in Catalan, mic in Romanian = little, few). There are clear Basque-like substrate influences that affected the Latin carried there by the Romans: LP rp (curpi), LI gghi (megghiuri), LL dd (cabaddu), RL rr (parrare), LD rd (cardu); initial FL- group develops to tx- as in FLUMINE ciume; the Basque also is affected by such indetermination on L sounds as can be seen also in the Romance dialects affected by such substrate as is Aragonese, Ribagorzan, Spanish and Gascon: VALLE batshe, CASTELLO kasteth, CLARO kyyar, FLAMA fyyama, FLAMA yama, MELIORE mehhor, ILLA era, BELLA bera, etc. In fact nowadays's Basques pronounce the "r" sound as a liquid "r", a sound between r and l. Also the R+cons. group has been affected in dialects disappearing the r sound (PORTO pottu).

Non-Indoeuropean terms in Sicilian: alastra (type of plant), ammarrari, calancuni, calanna, carrivali, limarra (mud), etc.

IDEA: Another explanation would be that non-IE peoples from Anatolia acted as Sea Peoples and reached Sicily (Siculs), Sardinia (Sards)... and East Spain, so that for ancient authors they would be confussed as Iberian peoples. Moreover, there were Iberians in Spain and Iberians in the Caucasus...

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