From: Tavi
Message: 69954
Date: 2012-08-10
>In the view of some scholars, namely Beeks and Woudhuizen, Etruscans were one of the Sea Peoples originary of NW Anatolia, and they established themselves in Italy at the time of the Villanovan culture (900-700 BC).
> > If I'm not mistaken, iron was introduced in Italy by Villanovan people,
> > which according to most specialists are the direct ancestors of the
> > historical Etruscans.
>
> Careful please. The article notes the majority agreeing with Pallottino that Villanovan culture was ancestral to Etruscan civilization. This is not the same as "Villanovan people" ancestral to the Etruscans introducing iron-working from outside of Italy.
>
> Villanovan culture comes from Urnfield culture, so one would expect their language to be Sorothaptic (or "Illyro-Lusitanian"), and this cannot be ancestral to the non-IE Etruscan language. Probably the Proto-Villanovan incomers practiced elite dominancewith their superior technology, but were then largely assimilated like the Normans into the English.
>Surely you're referring to the late *Bronze* Proto-Villanovan culture (1100-900 BC), an offshot of the Urnfield
> The Etruscan name of Bologna is Felsina, which I believe we can understand as based on IE *pels- 'rock, cliff, crag' (German <Fels>, Macedonian <Pella>, Mac.(?) <pella> 'lithos' i.e. 'stone' Hes.). For (aspirated) IE *p{H}- becoming Etr. f- cf. Umbrian *Poplons > Etr. Fufluns 'Liber, Dionysus'. Possibly Latin <mare>, <lacus>, and <taxus> owe their /a/-vocalism to borrowing from this Illyrioid "Proto-Villanovan" stratum as well.Your last sentence looks almost like a verbatim quote from Villar's 2005 book (coauthored with Blanca Prósper) "Vascos, celtas e indoeuropeos. Genes y lenguas." However, the distribution of the ancient Italian toponymy he considers to be Italoid is much more widespread than the extent of Proto-Villanovan and therefore suggests an older chronology for this linguistic layer.
>