The Terramare Culture and the Bronze Age Collapse

in bronze age northern italy there thrived a fascinating people known today as the terramar culture they lived in houses elevated above the earth on piles in villages protected by banks and ditches they raised animals and grew a variety of crops and they were skilled bronze workers they were also warriors armed with long swords and were at the center of a europe-wide trade network in copper tin and amber and then in about 1150 bc quite suddenly they disappeared this was the same era as the late bronze age collapse when the mysterious sea peoples invaded the near east and destroyed so many ancient civilizations leading to the first great dark age in history so were the people of the terramar culture involved in some way were they also the victims of climatic changes and foreign invasions that wiped them out or were they perhaps one of the perpetrators could they in fact have been amongst the sea peoples this is the mystery of the terramar culture terra mar is the name given to an archaeological culture located mainly in the po valley in northern italy that thrived between about 1650 bc and 1150 bc its name comes from the deep layers of black earth where their settlements used to be like many ancient settlement sites all over the world these sites grew into mounds over the generations as the ordinary waste from living farming and raising animals grew beneath their feet within the quadrangular boundary ditches and banks surrounding these villages the ground level rose over the centuries this black earth several meters thick and rich in organic material was harvested by 19th century italian farmers to be used as fertilizer for their own fields and gardens there are more than 60 of these villages known today stretching from the mouth of the po river to the hills north of the plain their houses were often built on piles on stilts they did this in villages where the ground was wet or liable to flood but they also did it on dry ground some villages also had houses with floors at ground level while others in the same village were on piles and it's not known why this was done one suggestion is that these people originated in wet landscapes and carried on that building tradition even when they moved to drier places in the early period of this culture these small villages usually no bigger than two hectares or five acres were close to one another across the landscape often just two kilometers or a mile or so away from their neighbours these villages supported around 250 people but by the late bronze age something had changed many of these small villages were abandoned while a few others grew enormously these people stopped being so widely distributed across the landscape and instead lived together in much larger settlements for example one grew to seven hectares another sixteen one expanded to cover 22 hectares and the largest had a border enclosing 60 hectares which is almost 150 acres the banks and ditches marking the perimeters of these sites also grew with the largest over 30 meters or 100 feet in width these settlements also had wooden fortifications gates and bridges but the huge earthworks were not only defensive the boundary ditches were filled with water rerouted from nearby rivers and were a way of retaining precious water resources they also dug wells and irrigation canals for their fields the terramar economy was based on abundant cereal production mainly wheat and barley and on the rearing of livestock mainly sheep and goats but also pigs cattle were also used for pulling plows and carts they had dogs for managing their herds and they kept horses for pulling carts though whether they used chariots in war we don't know for sure they also did a small amount of hunting for deer and wild boar these people included expert craftsmen making ceramics textiles and items from deerhorn they also had skilled bronze workers in these villages making tools weapons pins and other items and we might call them villages but the late terramere sites were complex settlements with elements of town planning and evidence of social stratification they had a system of perpendicular streets with houses of the same shape and size the early houses were often around 60 square meters and some later houses grew to be around 100 square meters it's thought that each house on stilts would have been occupied by a family unit interestingly as houses reached the end of their life they were demolished and a new house was built on top occupying the exact same plot this ordered system of land ownership and inheritance is familiar to us today and was seen in planned villages in europe from the medieval period onwards but it is unusual for the bronze age and conveys the sense of a well-ordered society they were otherwise a quite typical late bronze age european warrior society similar to the contemporary tumulus culture to their north around 25 of their graves were of elite individuals the men buried with swords and daggers and the women with pairs of pins with amber beads when necessary the rest of the male population may have been called on to fight by their ruling class probably with bows and spears but their status in life as farmers herders and craftsmen was reflected in their lack of grave goods the terramar had close links with southern germany and hungary as well as the cultures of the eastern mediterranean especially the mycenaeans there is a huge amount of material evidence demonstrating these connections but the most striking of all to me at least is the fact that the terramar used two systems of weights and measures one was that of central europe and the other was from the aegean the terra mar were a key link between the two regions and in fact these cultural and trade links are a vital part of the story of these people from their early days through to their abrupt end so let's look now at this late bronze age trade network and where the terramar fit into it the period from 1700 bc to about 1150 bc saw the development of a complex trade system linking the urban civilizations of the eastern mediterranean and the near east with other societies further afield from the indus valley in the east to the atlantic coast in the west the horn of africa in the south and the baltic in the north resources like copper and tin were mined in places like britain and iberia and then transported step by step along well-established trade routes by land river and sea into the mediterranean but this enormous integrated system although long lasting was complex and it was not always peaceful for example peoples in the vast grasslands of the eurasian steppe traded horses and other goods with the civilizations to their south across the caucasus but they also raided and even conquered them like the indo-iranian chariot warriors that established the mittani kingdom in the heart of syria likewise the mycenaean greeks started out on the periphery of the more ancient kingdoms of the eastern mediterranean in many ways a cultural and economic satellites of the minoans of crete before eventually conquering the people they had long emulated taking over their monopoly on aegean maritime trade and during the late bronze age and one might say at all times in world history trade and conquest were two sides of the same coin but long-standing trade routes can also lead the peoples on the periphery back into the center as we shall see shortly the terramar people did not have enormous copper deposits to mine nor did they have a huge urban population of voracious metal consumers like the civilizations to the east but they were located in an important position within this international trade network linking southern scandinavia to the mycenaean trade network in the mediterranean here in the po delta there is evidence of extensive mycenaean contact and not only were exchanges made here there were mycenaeans actually living here potters almost certainly and probably also merchants and colonisers facilitating the trade with their other outposts in the western mediterranean on sicily and sardinia and even perhaps iberia in this system incredibly valuable baltic amber passed from denmark into southern germany and down into the po valley these terramar-based mycenaeans also facilitated trade in copper from sardinia and iberia north into germany and ultimately to scandinavia we know this in part because lead isotope testing shows that much of the enormous quantity of bronzes in this period of the nordic bronze age was made from copper mined in iberia and sardinia these networks were kept together by treaties dynastic marriages and political alliances between the chiefdoms and kingdoms along the route which in turn provided political security for travelling warriors and traders and although local warfare always contained a risk to the system the benefits of maintaining stable alliances prevailed at least for a while interestingly there is a link between the bronze age tell cultures in hungary and the terra mar in 1500 bc these hungarian cultures collapsed and some of their inhabitants migrated to the po delta where they became part of the expanding terramar culture which was organized socially in much the same way as the hungarian tell settlements had been although it is said the terramar culture began in around 1650 bc in fact they underwent enormous demographic growth and cultural change from about 1500 bc because of this mass colonization event from hungary we know this because of the appearance of hungarian style antler cheek pieces for controlling horses hungarian pottery types and even in the settlement types from that period and especially in the burials of early terramar warriors with long bronze sword types that are exactly the same as those from hungary and which are found nowhere else other than in these two places at this time and as the overland carpathian trade route to the mycenaean greeks declined the mediterranean maritime trade network hooked up with the south german joomlas culture and nordic bronze age denmark through south eastern france and the terramar culture so for centuries these people were thriving right in the center of this european trade network and then quite suddenly in the 12th century bc between 1200 and 1150 bc these people disappeared within a single generation an estimated 120 000 people left and it took several hundred years for the area to be repopulated so what happened to them well of course it must be related in some way to the late bronze age collapse which happened around this time but where did these people go the 13th century bc was a rather dramatic period the stability of the late bronze age system was under strain from a whole range of pressures the power balance between the hittites and egypt was heating up and both sides sought allies and recruited mercenaries from the surrounding areas and further afield and this was a period of rapid military development new weapon and armor styles appeared throughout europe reflecting the new style of warfare sword and spear-armed infantry protected by round shields helmets and breastplates appeared from britain and denmark to iberia and greece a highly mobile warrior aristocracy arose forming the retinues of chiefs and kings escorting trade caravans guarding trade centers and protecting the ships that carried the goods they also became mercenaries and pirates preying on cargo ships and threatening trade centers chiefdoms and palaces and this is why fortifications were erected around the palace centers of mycenaean greece like tyrants at this time mycenaean and cypriot ships were in regular contact with southern italy sardinia and the adriatic especially the settlement of fratercina and through the terramar the mycenaeans had contacts with central and northern europe so during the instability of the 13th century bc many of these places were increasingly drawn into the mycenaean world through a mix of trade war service as mercenaries and by the provision of slaves in this period italian-type flange-hilted swords from travelling warriors are found in several places in the east mediterranean along with these swords the presence of north italian daggers and early violin biofibula a kind of pin used on clothing shows that it was actually people from northern italy with all their personal items that were traveling by land and sea into the civilizations that had for so long been at the center of the bronze age world it wasn't just people from northern italy of course the so-called sea people mentioned in famous egyptian inscriptions and preserved in letters by other regional kings were from many places some of the sea peoples were warriors and mercenaries some were associated with the sea while others with the land and ox drawn wagons bringing their women and children with them in their migrations those mentioned by name are the pelosette tijeka shekhalesh and the teresh but who were they well scholars have been arguing this for over 150 years and the discussions will continue into the future some like the danian wehesh and ekwesh have been identified with the greeks the shekalesh with sicilians and the sherden with sardinians but this doesn't mean only these groups were attacking the near east and it doesn't mean that the recorded name of a group represented a distinct ethnic group with a single origin in fact considering the mobile nature of the european warrior trader aristocracy of this time and the nature of mercenaries it would be surprising if they all did in the depiction of the sea battle at the great temple of madinat habu in egypt we get some indications of these invaders their intention was supposedly to settle here in egypt and some of their ships had characteristic seabird sterns and swan headed sterns are well known on ships from central europe to the aegean including italy the warriors depicted ahmadinejad their arms and armor types found throughout europe the round shields have been found from denmark to ireland and were very likely in use everywhere the horned helmets are seen in the sardinian bronze figurines of the neuralgic civilization in mycenaean art and grave goods in bronze figurines and rock art in denmark and possibly in iberia and elsewhere they wear body armor of various types and skirts like those worn by warriors in the aegean this mix of arms and armor is also seen in contemporary figures painted on the famous mycenaean warrior of ours again reflecting this new european mobile warrior class and so the terramar populations could quite plausibly have been among the sea peoples but let's go back to the po valley and look at the archaeological explanations for why a hundred and twenty thousand people left in such a short time as mentioned earlier these people had been undergoing social changes for generations a handful of the many small villages became huge well-defended high-density population centers while the rest were abandoned what would drive people together like that well examination of human remains from one teramar cemetery shows 16 of the skeletons had lesions from axes swords and arrowheads considering that not all combat injuries will appear on the bones this is a remarkably high percentage and so we can be certain that warfare was endemic in a terramar culture the powerful chiefs of this land waged war against one another perhaps over many generations conquering smaller villages drawing them together in one place to defend their people and resources from other local warlords the later villages also had some large-scale buildings which have been interpreted as warehouses presumably for the local elites to amass and control the ever more precious grain supplies ever more precious because the local climate became colder and wetter from around 1400 bc and lasted until 1200 to 1100 bc which is when the great exodus took place these climatic changes in northern italy and elsewhere in europe and the near east would have led to a scarcity of resources and greater efforts to defend what there was and no doubt there were greater efforts to take the resources of others they also started growing hardy millet around this time which no one would do if they had any better options better options like wheat and barley and pollen evidence shows increasing signs of crisis and environmental over-exploitation especially after 1300 bc so there was a steady worsening of local conditions but why the sudden exodus what crisis could induce so many people to move all at once well it seems that after all their troubles they were then hit with several years of consecutive drought again there is evidence of this not only here but across europe and the near east a combination of all these factors and the wider instability in the eastern mediterranean led to a joint decision by the terramar chiefs to leave their homeland taking their people with them to settle in areas they were already familiar with thanks to their centuries-long trade links areas such as the aegean and southern italy and sicily the route taken by these chiefs can be tracked by the appearance in the record in various places of the diagnostic violin bow fibulae worn by these people the early distribution of these items after the exodus is mostly in the east mediterranean and it matches with the distribution of a type of italian dark burnished handmade pottery so we can be fairly sure that many of these chiefs and the populations of their huge settlements crossed the seas in large numbers to mainland greece especially the peloponnese and also to crete and cyprus in smaller numbers some of them went on to western anatolia and even to syria some chiefs took sea routes while others thanks to ancient contacts with hungary and the balkans took overland routes small numbers went as far as the north coast of the black sea but it seems that the terremere migration primarily was headed towards the aegean and crete the center of the ancient trade routes they had so long been part of and in some areas such as arcadia there are genuine italian flange hilted swords in local richly furnished graves suggesting that at least some of these migrating chiefs had succeeded in conquering these lands and becoming local overlords no doubt these mycenaean palaces were unprepared for these sudden attacks in great numbers and were taken by surprise we can think perhaps of the first viking invasions of england and the sudden inroads made by marauding armies and somewhat like the vikings and other historical conquerors their material and cultural presence declined rather quickly as the colonisers were assimilated by the far larger host civilization so although the sea peoples were undoubtedly made up of many ethnic groups there is strong evidence to support the idea that the terramar exodus represents one of the major events in this period and could also have been one of the many triggering forces one which perhaps led to further upheavals and displacements imagine a confederation of mycenaean kings busy waging war across the aegean against hittite vessel kingdoms like wilusa and its allies in anatolia real historical events perhaps remembered as the trojan war and while they are so engaged waves of hostile invaders pour into their undefended homeland from land and sea by the north and west remember the population estimates were an exodus of 120 000 people even if many relocated in italy and sicily there were still plenty of invaders to cause serious problems for the myceneans these conquests and the instability caused by them might have encouraged some of the mycelium population the danyan wahesh and ekwesh perhaps to join this mass raiding further to the east and south rather than staying at home perhaps there were terramar warriors amongst these named groups and remember that many of the terrimer people moved south into sicily this might have been the catalyst driving the shekalesh from the island eastwards to ultimately attack egypt perhaps terramera warriors accompanied them too the remarkable connections between the various cultures of bronze age europe and the near east are explored in my video about the horned helmets of the bronze age so please click here to watch that video next thank you for watching

Channel: Dan Davis History

Views: 733,169

Keywords: bronze age history, history documentaries, ancient history documentary, ancient civilizations, bronze age collapse, bronze age, sea people, trojan war, ancient egypt, bronze age civilization, ancient history, bronze age collapse documentary, bronze age history documentary, nordic bronze age, mycenaean greece, mycenean, mycenaean civilization, minoan civilization, ancient greece, terramare culture, terramare sicily, bronze age italy

Id: oL5GDXq1acE

Length: 25min 20sec (1520 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 23 2021