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{{Short description|Pre-Roman civilization of ancient Italy}}{{Use shortened footnotes|date=April 2023}}

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}}| conventional_long_name = Etruscans| common_name = Etruscan civilization| era = Iron Age, Ancient history| status = City-states| year_start = 900 BC| year_end = 27 BC| event_start = Villanovan culture| event_end = Last Etruscan cities formally absorbed by Rome| p1 = Proto-Villanovan culture| flag_p1 = | s1 = Roman Empire| flag_s1 = Etruscan coins>Etruscan coinage (5th century BC onward)| image_map = Etruscan civilization map.png| image_map_caption = Extent of Etruscan civilization and the twelve Etruscan League cities.Etruscan language>EtruscanEtruscan religion>Etruscan| year_leader1 = Unknown| year_leader2 = Unknown| legislature = Etruscan League

• Italy
• Vatican City
• San Marino
• Corsica

{edih}| government_type = Chiefdomdemonym=area_rank=GDP_PPP_year=|HDI=}}{{History of Italy}}The Etruscan civilization ({{IPAc-en|ɪ|ˈ|t|r|ÊŒ|s|k|É™n}} {{respell|ih|TRUS|kÉ™n}}) was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in ancient Italy, with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states.JOURNAL, Potts, Charlotte R., Smith, Christopher J., The Etruscans: Setting New Agendas, Journal of Archaeological Research, 2022, 30, 4, 597–644, 10.1007/s10814-021-09169-x, free, 10023/24245, free, After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio,BOOK, Goring, Elizabeth, 2004, Treasures from Tuscany: the Etruscan legacy, en, Edinburgh, National Museums Scotland Enterprises Limited, 13, 978-1901663907, BOOK, Leighton, Robert, 2004, Tarquinia. An Etruscan City, Duckworth Archaeological Histories Series, en, London, Duckworth Press, 32, 0-7156-3162-4, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.BOOK, Hartmann, Thomas Michael, 2001, Camporeale, Giovannangelo, Giovannangelo Camporeale, The Etruscans Outside Etruria, en, Los Angeles, Getty Trust Publications, 2004, BOOK, Della Fina, Giuseppe, 2005, Etruschi, la vita quotidiana, Italian, Rome, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 15, 9788882653330, On the origins of the Etruscans a large body of literature has flourished; however, the consensus among modern scholars is that the Etruscans were an indigenous population.BOOK, Barker, Graeme, Graeme Barker, Rasmussen, Tom, Tom Rasmussen, 2000, The Etruscans, The Peoples of Europe, English, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 44, 978-0-631-22038-1, BOOK, De Grummond, Nancy T., Nancy Thomson de Grummond, 2014, Ethnicity and the Etruscans, McInerney, Jeremy, A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, Chichester, UK, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 405–422, 10.1002/9781118834312, 9781444337341, BOOK, Turfa, Jean MacIntosh, Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 2017, The Etruscans, Farney, Gary D., Bradley, Gary, The Peoples of Ancient Italy, Berlin, De Gruyter, 637–672, 10.1515/9781614513001, 978-1-61451-520-3, BOOK, Shipley, Lucy, 2017, Where is home?, The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations, en, London, Reaktion Books, 28–46, 9781780238623, BOOK, Benelli, Enrico, 2021, Le origini. Dai racconti del mito all’evidenza dell’archeologia, Gli Etruschi, Italian, Milan, Idea Libri-Rusconi Editore, 9–24, 978-8862623049, The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900{{nbs}}BC.BOOK, 2012, Bartoloni, Gilda, Introduzione all’Etruscologia, it, Milan, Hoepli, 978-8820348700, This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization,BOOK, Gli etruschi tra VIII e VII secolo a.C. nel territorio di Castelfranco Emilia (MO), Diana, Neri, All’Insegna del Giglio, Firenze, 2012, it, 1.1 Il periodo villanoviano nell’Emilia occidentale, 9, 978-8878145337, Il termine “Villanoviano” è entrato nella letteratura archeologica quando, a metà dell ‘800, il conte Gozzadini mise in luce le prime tombe ad incinerazione nella sua proprietà di Villanova di Castenaso, in località Caselle (BO). La cultura villanoviana coincide con il periodo più antico della civiltà etrusca, in particolare durante i secoli IX e VIII a.C. e i termini di Villanoviano I, II e III, utilizzati dagli archeologi per scandire le fasi evolutive, costituiscono partizioni convenzionali della prima età del Ferro, BOOK, La cultura villanoviana. All’inizio della storia etrusca, Gilda, Bartoloni, Carocci editore, Roma, 2012, 2002, it, III, 9788843022618, BOOK, Gi Etruschi, Giovanni, Colonna, Giovanni Colonna (archaeologist), Mario, Torelli, Bompiani, Milano, 2000, it, I caratteri originali della civiltà Etrusca, 25–41, BOOK, Gi Etruschi, Dominique, Briquel, Dominique Briquel, Mario, Torelli, Bompiani, Milano, 2000, it, Le origini degli Etruschi: una questione dibattuta fin dall’antichità, 43–51, BOOK, Gi Etruschi, Gilda, Bartoloni, Mario, Torelli, Bompiani, Milano, 2000, it, Le origini e la diffusione della cultura villanoviana, 53–71, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region,BOOK, Moser, Mary E., 1996, The origins of the Etruscans: new evidence for an old question, Hall, John Franklin, John F. Hall, Etruscan Italy: Etruscan Influences on the Civilizations of Italy from Antiquity to the Modern Era,archive.org/details/etruscanitaly00john/page/29, registration, en, Provo, Utah, Museum of Art, Brigham Young University, 29- 43, 0842523340, part of the central European Urnfield culture system. Etruscan civilization dominated Italy until it fell to the expanding Rome beginning in the late 4th{{nbs}}century{{nbs}}BC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars; Etruscans were granted Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and only in 27 BC the whole Etruscan territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire.The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 750 BC, during the foundational period of the Roman Kingdom. Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and that of Campania.WEB, A good map of the Italian range and cities of the culture at the beginning of its history,www.mysteriousetruscans.com/cities.html, mysteriousetruscans.com, The topic of the “League of Etruria” is covered in Freeman, pp. 562–65. The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy.BOOK, Titus, Livius, Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, The History of Rome, Book V, Section 33, The passage identifies the Raetia, Raetii as a remnant of the 12 cities “beyond the Apennine Mountains, Apennines”., Ab Urbe Condita Libri, WEB, Polybius, Polybius, Campanian Etruscans mentioned,penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/2*.html#17, II.17, The entire subject with complete ancient sources in footnotes was worked up by George Dennis in his Introduction. In the LacusCurtius transcription, the references in Dennis’s footnotes link to the texts in English or Latin; the reader may also find the English of some of them on WikiSource or other Internet sites. As the work has already been done by Dennis and Thayer, the complete work-up is not repeated here. The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500{{nbs}}BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from the Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic.BOOK, M. Cary, H.H. Scullard, A History of Rome, 3rd, 1979, 28, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 0-312-38395-9, The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700{{nbs}}BC.BOOK, Helmut, Rix, Etruscan, The Ancient Languages of Europe,archive.org/details/ancientlanguages00roge, registration, Roger D., Woodard, Cambridge University Press, 2008, 141–64, 9780521684958, BOOK, Bonfante, Giuliano, Giuliano Bonfante, Bonfante, Larissa, Larissa Bonfante, 2002, 1983, The Etruscan language. An introduction, en, II (Revised), Manchester, UK, Manchester University Press, 0719055407, The Etruscans developed a system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet, which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy).WEB, Etruscan alphabet and language,omniglot.com/writing/etruscan.htm, 2022-02-16, omniglot.com, The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At the height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries.WEB, Celti ed Etruschi nell’Etruria Padana e nell’Italia settentrionale,www.academia.edu/4847350, it, PDF, Sassatelli, Giuseppe, WEB, federix71, 2019-08-28, Etruschi e Celti della Gallia meridionale – parte 1,celticworld.it/2019/08/28/etruschi-e-celti-della-gallia-meridionale-parte-1/, 2022-02-15, CelticWorld, it-IT,

Legend and history

File:Urna cineraria biconica con coperchio a elmo crestato, da pozzo cinerario a monterozzi, loc. forse fontanaccia.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|Biconical cinerary urn with crest-shaped helmet lid, 9th–8th century BC, from Monterozzi (Fontanaccia), Tarquinia, Museo archeologico nazionale ]]File:Urne cinéraire imitant une habitation traditionnelle. Attribuée à l’atelier de Vulci (Etrurie). Impasto et plaque de bronze découpée. 8e siècle av. J.-C..jpg|thumb|upright=.7|Urn in the shape of a hut, which represents the typical Etruscan house of the Villanovan phase, 8th century BC, from Vulci, Musée d’art et d’histoire de Genève ]]File:Bronze chariot inlaid with ivory MET DP137936.jpg|thumb|Monteleone chariotMonteleone chariotFile:Etruscan pendant with swastika symbols Bolsena Italy 700 BCE to 650 BCE.jpg|thumb|right|Etruscan pendant with a large equilateral cross of concentric circles flanked by four small right-facing swastikas among its symbols from Bolsena, Italy, 700–650 BC. LouvreLouvreFile:Putto graziani, con dedica al dio tec sans, da sanguineto al trasimeno, 200-150 ac ca..JPG|thumb|upright=.7|Putto Graziani, hollow-cast bronze on which is engraved the Etruscan inscription “To the god Tec Sans as a gift” (Tec Sans was the protectress of childhood), 3-2nd century BC, Rome, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco ]]File:Museo guarnacci, urna degli sposi, I sec. ac. 01.JPG|thumb|right|Sarcophagus of the Spouses, about 1st century BC, VolterraVolterra

Ethnonym and etymology

The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was shortened to Rasna or RaÅ›na (Neo-Etruscan), with both etymologies unknown.Rasenna comes from BOOK, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, I.30.3, The syncopated form, Rasna, is inscriptional and is inflected.The topic is covered in Pallottino, p. 133.Some inscriptions, such as the cippus of Cortona, feature the RaÅ›na (pronounced Rashna) alternative, as is described at WEB, Gabor Z., Bodroghy,users.tpg.com.au/etr/etrusk/po/origins.html, Etruscan, Origins, The Palaeolinguistic Connection,users.tpg.com.au/etr/etrusk/po/origins.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20080416143745users.tpg.com.au/etr/etrusk/po/origins.html,">web.archive.org/web/20080416143745users.tpg.com.au/etr/etrusk/po/origins.html, 2008-04-16, dmy-all, In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (, TyrrhÄ“noi, earlier TyrsÄ“noi),{{LSJ|*turrhno/s|Τυρρηνός}}, {{LSJ|*turshno/s|Τυρσηνός|ref}}. from which the Romans derived the names TyrrhÄ“nÄ«, TyrrhÄ“nia (Etruria),{{L&S|Tyrrheni|ref}} and Mare TyrrhÄ“num (Tyrrhenian Sea).Gaffiot’s.{{full citation needed|date=April 2020}}The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the TuscÄ« or EtruscÄ« (singular Tuscus).According to Félix Gaffiot’s Dictionnaire Illustré Latin Français, the major authors of the Roman Republic (Livy, Cicero, Horace, and others) used the term Tusci. Cognate words developed, including Tuscia and Tusculanensis. TuscÄ« was clearly the principal term used to designate things Etruscan; EtruscÄ« and Etrusia/EtrÅ«ria were used less often, mainly by Cicero and Horace, and they lack cognates.According to the WEB,www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=etruscan&searchmode=none, Online Etymological Dictionary, the English use of Etruscan dates from 1706.{{L&S|Tusci|ref}} Their Roman name is the origin of the terms “Toscana”, which refers to their heartland, and “Etruria”, which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been the Umbrian word for “Etruscan”, based on an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region.WEB, ‘Cui bono?’ The beneficiary phrases of the third Iguvine table, Michael, Weiss, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University,ling.cornell.edu/people/Weiss/Cuibono.pdf,ling.cornell.edu/people/Weiss/Cuibono.pdf," title="ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009ling.cornell.edu/people/Weiss/Cuibono.pdf,">ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009ling.cornell.edu/people/Weiss/Cuibono.pdf, 2022-10-09, live, The inscription contains the phrase turskum ... nomen, literally “the Tuscan name”. Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci,BOOK, Carl Darling Buck, Carl Darling Buck, 1904, Introduction: A Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian, Boston, Gibb & Company, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis, be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci.BOOK, Eric, Partridge, 1983, Origins,archive.org/details/originsshortetym0000part, registration, Greenwich House, New York, 9780517414255, under “tower”, As for the original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris, means “tower”, and comes from the ancient Greek word for tower: ,The Bonfantes (2003), p. 51.{{LSJ|tu/rsis|τύρσις|shortref}}. likely a loan into Greek. On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the “people who build towers” or “the tower builders”.Partridge (1983) This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to the simple Latins.BOOK, The Etruscan Language: An Introduction, Revised Edition, Bonfante, Giuliano, Bonfante, Larissa, Manchester University Press, 2002, 978-0719055409, 51, The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., “[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers.“Book I, Section 30. In his recent Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Robert Beekes claims the Greek word is a “loanword from a Mediterranean language”, a hypothesis that goes back to an article by Paul Kretschmer in Glotta from 1934.Beekes, R. Etymological Dictionary of Greek Brill (2010) pp.1520-1521Kretschmer, P. “Nordische Lehnwörter im Altgriechischen” in Glotta 22 (1934) pp. 110 ff.

Origins

Ancient sources

Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about the origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece.The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins.Hesiod, Theogony 1015. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to DionysusHomeric Hymn to Dionysus, 7.7–8 referred to them as pirates.John Pairman Brown, Israel and Hellas, Vol. 2 (2000) p. 211 Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians.It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name “Tyrrhenians” with the “Pelasgians”, and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for “non-Greek” and “indigenous ancestors of Greeks”, respectively.Strabo. Geography. Book VI, Chapter II. Perseus Digital Library. Tufts University. www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Strab.+6.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239" title="web.archive.org/web/20220902170714www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Strab.+6.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239">Archived from the original on 2 September 2022. Retrieved 2 September 2022. The 5th-century BC historians Herodotus,6.137 and Thucydides4.109 and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo,Strabo. Geography. Book V, Chapter II. Perseus Digital Library. Tufts University.www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Strab.+5.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239" title="web.archive.org/web/20220902165216www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Strab.+5.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239">Archived from the original on 2 September 2022. Retrieved 2 September 2022. did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of the Greek island of Lemnos. They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as “belonging to the Tyrrhenians” (). As Strabo and Herodotus told it,1.94 the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to the Italian Peninsula. According to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos, there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians.BOOK, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 1.28–3, There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in a language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans.BOOK, Robert D., Morritt, Stones that Speak, 2010, 272, The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a “Tyrrhenian language group” comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps.However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that the Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians.BOOK, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Book I, Chapters 30 1, Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia, who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of the Lydians.{{blockquote|For this reason, therefore, I am persuaded that the Pelasgians are a different people from the Tyrrhenians. And I do not believe, either, that the Tyrrhenians were a colony of the Lydians; for they do not use the same language as the latter, nor can it be alleged that, though they no longer speak a similar tongue, they still retain some other indications of their mother country. For they neither worship the same gods as the Lydians nor make use of similar laws or institutions, but in these very respects they differ more from the Lydians than from the Pelasgians. Indeed, those probably come nearest to the truth who declare that the nation migrated from nowhere else, but was native to the country, since it is found to be a very ancient nation and to agree with no other either in its language or in its manner of living.}}The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna.{{blockquote|The Romans, however, give them other names: from the country they once inhabited, named Etruria, they call them Etruscans, and from their knowledge of the ceremonies relating to divine worship, in which they excel others, they now call them, rather inaccurately, Tusci, but formerly, with the same accuracy as the Greeks, they called them Thyrscoï [an earlier form of Tusci]. Their own name for themselves, however, is the same as that of one of their leaders, Rasenna.}}Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy, in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri, said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin.BOOK, Titus, Livius, Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, The History of Rome, Book 5, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, {{blockquote|The Alpine tribes have also, no doubt, the same origin (of the Etruscans), especially the Raetians; who have been rendered so savage by the very nature of the country as to retain nothing of their ancient character save the sound of their speech, and even that is corrupted.}}The first-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79):BOOK, Plinius Secundus, Gaius, Naturalis Historia, Liber III, 133, Latin, {{blockquote|Adjoining these the (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus.|source=}}

Archeological evidence and modern etruscology

The question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an indigenous origin of the Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria.BOOK, Wallace, Rex E., Rex E. Wallace, 2010, Italy, Languages of, Gagarin, Michael, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, English, Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 97–102, 10.1093/acref/9780195170726.001.0001, 9780195170726, Etruscan origins lie in the distant past. Despite the claim by Herodotus, who wrote that Etruscans migrated to Italy from Lydia in the eastern Mediterranean, there is no material or linguistic evidence to support this. Etruscan material culture developed in an unbroken chain from Bronze Age antecedents. As for linguistic relationships, Lydian is an Indo-European language. Lemnian, which is attested by a few inscriptions discovered near Kamania on the island of Lemnos, was a dialect of Etruscan introduced to the island by commercial adventurers. Linguistic similarities connecting Etruscan with Raetic, a language spoken in the sub-Alpine regions of northeastern Italy, further militate against the idea of eastern origins., Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians’ assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless.BOOK, Pallottino, Massimo, Massimo Pallottino, L’origine degli Etruschi, it, Rome, Tumminelli, 1947, In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek historians’ writings on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents.BOOK, Briquel, Dominique, Dominique Briquel, 2000, Le origini degli Etruschi: una questione dibattuta sin dall’antichità, Torelli, Mario, Mario Torelli, Gli Etruschi, it, Milan, Bompiani, 43–51, He argues that the ancient story of the Etruscans’ ‘Lydian origins’ was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks.BOOK, Hornblower, Simon, Spawforth, Antony, Eidinow, Esther, The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization,books.google.com/books?id=0awiBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA292, Oxford Companions, en, 2, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, 291–292, 9780191016752, Briquel’s convincing demonstration that the famous story of an exodus, led by Tyrrhenus from Lydia to Italy, was a deliberate political fabrication created in the Hellenized milieu of the court at Sardis in the early 6th cent. BCE., BOOK, Briquel, Dominique, 2013, Etruscan Origins and the Ancient Authors, Turfa, Jean, The Etruscan World, en, London and New York, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 36–56, 978-0-415-67308-2, He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration.JOURNAL, Briquel, Dominique, Dominique Briquel, 1990, Le problème des origines étrusques, Lalies, Sessions de linguistique et de littérature, fr, Paris, Presses de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, 1992, 7–35, Several archaeologists specializing in Prehistory and Protohistory, who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices, that can support a migration theory.BOOK, Bartoloni, Gilda, 2014, Gli artigiani metallurghi e il processo formativo nelle “Origini” degli Etruschi, ” Origines ” : percorsi di ricerca sulle identità etniche nell’Italia antica, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Antiquité, it, 126-2, Rome, École française de Rome, 2014, 978-2-7283-1138-5, The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in the area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East. File:British Museum Etruscan 8-2.jpg|thumb|Painted terracotta 150}}–130 BC.A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years.BOOK, Bagnasco Gianni, Giovanna, Origine degli Etruschi, Bartoloni, Gilda, Introduzione all’Etruscologia, it, Milan, Ulrico Hoepli Editore, 47–81, Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during the last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture, and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece, Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and the Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and Phoenician-Punic colonies in Sardinia, and the consequent orientalizing period.BOOK, Stoddart, Simon, Simon Stoddart, 1989, Divergent trajectories in central Italy 1200–500 BC, Champion, Timothy C., Centre and Periphery – Comparative Studies in Archaeology, en, London and New York, Taylor & Francis, 2005, 89–102, One of the most common mistakes for a long time, even among some scholars of the past, has been to associate the later Orientalizing period of Etruscan civilization with the question of its origins. Orientalization was an artistic and cultural phenomenon that spread among the Greeks themselves, and throughout much of the central and western Mediterranean, not only in Etruria.BOOK, Burkert, Walter, 1992, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, Enciclopedia del Mediterraneo, English, London, Thames and Hudson, Orientalizing period in the Etruscans was due, as has been amply demonstrated by archeologists, to contacts with the Greeks and the Eastern Mediterranean and not to mass migrations.