Pages: 40-52

The problem of the beginning of the Eneolithic in peninsular Italy must be related to the Late Neolithic cultures, in which the Lagozza current and the Diana one intertwine and, in central Italy, blend into the Late Ripoli aspects. In this period, between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd millennium b.C., metal makes its first appearance and the first hypogean structures, both funerary and cultic, are built within the Serra d’Alto-Diana cultural sphere. But these innovations do not change the general context, still neolithic, and the true break is evident only towards the middle of the 3rd millennium, when metallurgy is documented  in some groups and clear cultural changes are visible mainly in funerary rituals and in the presence of weapons, both in burials and in representations on statue stele and rock art (Cremonesi 1988; Bagolini et alii 1987). The Eneolithic of central Italy cannot be easily defined in terms of cultures with clear-cut geographical and chronological boundaries: it is characterized by various aspects, roughly corresponding to large territories, that influence each other through mechanisms of contact that are often difficult to grasp. A first distinction can be made between the cultures of the Adriatic side of the peninsula and those of the Tyrrenian side: for many years Rinaldone represented the Eneolithic culture of the Tyrrenian side, while Conelle the culture of Marche and Ortucchio that of Abruzzo. Quite often all the findings between Toscana to the south of the Arno River and the Volturno River were attributed to the Rinaldone culture: generically eneolithic materials – such as arrowheads, battle axes, copper daggers and axes – were, in fact, often defined as Rinaldone in Toscana and Lazio although no typical Rinaldone elements were present in the same context. Moreover, in spite of the studies of Minto and Bernabň Brea (1956), this identification of the Eneolithic of Toscana and Lazio with Rinaldone did not take into consideration the different set of data from northern Toscana, generically connected with either the scarce evidence of Liguria or Remedello. In 1968 Cremonesi, in his study of Grotta dell’Orso (Cremonesi 1968, 1984), drew attention to the problem of  “a squame” coarse wares (scale decorated pottery); the re-analysis of the regional materials, that began in 1962 and was published in 1971, highlighted the richness in data of the whole region (Grifoni Cremonesi 1971). It is important to notice that, in particular in central and northern Tyrrenian regions, the Eneolithic is documented almost exclusively by burials: the possible distinctions are limited to the typology of the graves and the composition of the grave-goods, as well as to the presence of different pottery classes in the graves and in the scarce settlements known today. The funerary ritual shows differences co-existing in the same geographical territory – Toscana, Lazio, Umbria, Marche and Abruzzo –, i.e. burials in artificial caves, pit graves and natural caves and  rock fissures.