Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the use and experience of the Etruscan landscape using data from four different field surveys. In it I aim to demonstrate the presence of a coherent pattern of practice, the persistence of memory and the negotiation of daily activities in a cultured landscape rich in meaning.

Paper long abstract:

The romanticised timelessness of the Tuscan landscape has been a feature of Etruscan landscape archaeology since the early influence of Dennis and Lawrence, and seeing continuity both from modern hill towns and villages to Etruscan lifeways, as well as further back to Villanovan origins, has been a prominent aspect of landscape study in the region. In this paper I move away from this vision of simple pastoral bliss, and attempt to discuss the landscape of Etruria as a complex place inhabited not only by people but also by memories and traditions of practice and experience. By reviewing the data of four different landscape surveys, I have developed an interpretive scheme which holds true for all of them, based on the similar patterns in landscape use present in each one. I use a phenomenological, experiential approach to incorporate the long memories of this landscape with a practical sense of its use during the Etruscan period. Through considering the situation of settlement and mortuary sites, and the paths of movement between both these sites and natural resources in the landscape, I develop an idea of ritualised daily activity, in a landscape filled with meaning and memory. In this paper I develop ideas of transhumantic practice set in a landscape filled with ancestral echoes, daily performance in a ritualised landscape, and movement along paths embued with meaning as keys to effectively interpreting the data gleaned from field survey and site mapping.