This volume is the final publication of the research project The People and the State: Material Culture, Social Structure, and Political Centralisation in Central Italy (800–450 BC), based at the Groningen Institute of Archaeology, University of Groningen; it was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. It can be seen as a partner volume to the earlier, substantial exhibition catalogue (Attema et al. Reference Attema, Seubers, Willemsen, Bronkhorst, Filippini, Belelli Marchesini, Malizia and Nielsen2016), sharing some of the same illustrations but expanding the narrative into a scientific report. There are ten chapters, written by individual members of the project team, and a preface by the then Intendent of the Crustumerium area, Francesco di Gennaro, who envisioned the International Crustumerium Project, which involved the collaboration of international excavation teams.
The first chapter introduces the project while the tenth chapter offers an evaluation. Together they outline the two key questions the project aimed to answer: how did state formation in central Italy affect the social fabric of this community from its foundation in the mid ninth century BC to its abandonment at the end of the Archaic period c. 450 BC? And how did the inhabitants of this centre respond to the changing socio-political situation in relation to the increasing dominance of Rome? The project was able to characterise Crustumerium as an independent, culturally open, kinship-based, medium-sized settlement, which had developed by the Archaic period from a modest Iron Age settlement into a town that, in political terms, was a ‘Dorfstaat’ or village state rather than a city state. These characterisations answer the research questions splendidly.
The extent of the project is impressive and the relatively speedy publication is laudable. The project ran a mapping and coring programme both in the Tiber Valley and within the ancient town. I want to highlight the results in Chapter 2, as the past riverine landscape is less well known: the pre-Roman phases lie under several metres of Roman and post-Roman alluvial layers except by the Via Salaria in the east. An opportunity was lost in the geological survey by not linking the tuff names used by the excavators of the cemetery areas to the scientific names of different volcanic episodes, but it is a minor point. The geophysical prospection of the town (Chapter 3), however, contributed to the discovery of the monumental defensive ditch (fossato). Details of the fossato and other early urban characteristics, such as road infrastructure and drainage channels, are discussed in Chapter 4.
Chapter 5 (Van der Weg & Wijnstok) presents the study of the erosion of the site and the modelling of past land use; in my view this is one of the most interesting results of the project. Chapter 6 details the surface surveys on both the ancient town area and its hinterland. These chapters highlight the exemplary work of Jorn Seubers, with analysis of historic maps and GIS. It is a pity that the distribution maps of the town area do not show the diagnostic finds for different periods; this worked well in the maps of rural sites that were excitingly redated to the Mid-Republican period.
The extent of the excavations in the Orientalising and Archaic cemetery areas is, perhaps, the real contribution to regional central Italian studies. The future publication of all tombs at Crustumerium will provide the same kind of benchmark for these periods as did the famous Iron Age cemetery of Osteria dell'Osa at Gabii for the Early Iron Age. Chapter 7 presents an overview of the funerary excavations, concentrating on the area of Monte Del Bufalo: Belelli Marchesini records that the current dataset contains around 322 tombs with 4300 objects, of these the Dutch team excavated 71 tombs with more than 1035 grave goods. To date, the grave goods of 165 tombs have been catalogued; this means that a definitive typology and a full chronological seriation should be available soon.
Belelli Marchesini presents the development of tomb architecture from the earliest fossa graves, from Latial periods IIB2 and III, to the trenches with niches for grave goods and further into the loculus tombs in the Orientalising period. The gradual emergence of family chamber tombs happened after the last quarter of the seventh century BC. Fascinating details in this section are the discussion on the local house-formed cippi, or cap stones, and the isotope studies (Chapter 8) on three of the deceased, showing the inclusion of local fish in an otherwise terrestrial diet consisting largely of cereals and meat. The discussion of grave goods is based on case studies, such as the Orientalising banquet sets and the dwindling number of funerary artefacts in the Archaic period. The featured grave goods included a diadem from a female grave (tomb MDB232), but the funerary record lacks the so-called princely tombs recorded elsewhere in Latium. Thus, Crustumerium was not only a northern frontier town, but was also peripheral. This discussion is extended in Chapter 9, which situates the new findings at Crustumerium in their regional context.
The book is generally well written, notwithstanding a few unusual terms, such as referring to the monumental ditch as a ‘moat’, kitchen wares as ‘red-firing coarse wares’ and the trench of a grave as ‘a ditch’. The figures are mostly of excellent quality and they illustrate well the features described in the text.
Overall, this book details an ambitious and successful project that provides much new material and interpretation to researchers studying central Italy, state formation, urbanism, Romanisation and, indeed, Crustumerium itself.
