Abstract
In what ways did early state formation in central Italy, with as its main protagonist the city of Rome, affect the social fabric of community life? And how did central Italian inhabitants of minor urban centers respond to the changing socio-political situation due to political centralisation? These questions lie at the heart of the archaeological and ancient historical debate on the socio-political background of the rise of Rome. To pursue these questions, a spatial and functional analysis of the settlement area and surrounding territory of the Latin settlement of Crustumerium is proposed in tandem with an artefact based social analysis of excavated tombs and their inventories from its cemeteries. The important archaeological site of Crustumerium furnishes high quality data on both archaeological domains. Crustumerium is located along the river Tiber 16 km north of the ancient centre of Rome. Two subprojects are formulated: the first project concentrates on the rapid development between 800 and 450 BC of Crustumerium into a substantial settlement that quickly became a satellite of Rome. This project focuses on the analysis of increasing hierarchy in the regional settlement pattern of which Crustumerium was part. It deals with the anthropological problem of defining the transition of chiefdoms to an early state structure in central Italy from the angle of settlement archaeology; the second subproject investigates the role of material culture in the cemeteries of Crustumerium as a medium that was used to convey personal or group identities. It concentrates on the transition from individual aristocratic and warrior tombs in the late Iron Age to family chamber tombs in the Archaic period around 600 BC. In recent scholarship this change is considered as a fundamental one in the social and political organization of central Italy touching on important anthropological and historical issues, such as the rise of family structures (gentes) and patron-client relationships. This project thus deals with the transition of chiefdom to early state from the angle of funerary archaeology. The results of the subprojects will, on a synthetic level, be used by the project directors to study the area of tension between the people and the emerging early state, i.e. between the originally chiefdom-based social fabric of the local community at Crustumerium, and the overarching regional process of early state formation taking place in central Italy in the period 800 - 450 BC that would ultimately result in the family-based social order of the Archaic period. The case study of Crustumerium promises to offer a unique insight in the relationship between material culture, social structure and political centralisation in the context of Rome?s rise to power. The Groningen Institute of Archaeology (GIA) has been successfully engaged in archaeological research in the prestigious International Crustumerium Project since 2006 (with various international partners) and has extensive field and laboratory expertise in the field of central and south Italian protohistoric archaeology. GIA?s role in Italian archaeology is internationally recognised. For this project it enjoys the full support of the Special Archaeological Superintendency for the heritage of Rome (SSBAR = Soprintendenza Speciale per I Beni Archeologici di Roma) with which it closely collaborates.