Facies e culture nell’età del Bronzo italiana? La prospettiva di un cambiamento

These conclusive considerations aim to identify possible changes of perspective in the identification of Bronze Age communities, which are until now often described by the use of the terms facies and “culture”. We first reflect upon the question to which extent a limited set of archaeological remains – often the only category of available information from the past – enables us to answer such questions. There are indeed doubts if during the Bronze Age “archaeological cultures” existed and whether these are comparable to the ethnic groups of historical times. Was the awareness of being a member of a “people” already so outspoken during the Bronze Age? If we critically reconsider the traditional narratives of Bronze Age settlement patterns – seen as stable groups that were organised in territories with a “centre” and mutable periphery, we can also adopt different methods of classification at different scales of analysis. By means of an interdisciplinary set of methods and theory, we will be able to gradually better evaluate continuity and changes in the way ancient communities represented themselves and how they interacted and moved during the Bronze Age.