Greek trade with Italy in the Geometric period--tectonic context

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498514279/Impact-of-Tectonic-Activity-on-Ancient-Civilizations-Recurrent-Shakeups-Tenacity-Resilience-and-Change

Greek trade with Italy in the Geometric period—tectonic context

This post has been revised and incorporated in a published book (Aug. 2015; link above)

Eric R. Force (ejforce@aol.com)

The correspondence of trade routes with tectonic boundaries, described in my post of Nov. 23, 2011, has been largely spatial, with few hints of the actual dynamics behind trade propagation.  In 2012-13 I spent some more time in Italy (1) in an attempt to flesh out a real example.  The dynamics are of course still somewhat unclear, but many factors are archaeologically or textually documented.  I have used a little literary license in my description, but not much is required as shown by the references!  (2)

750 B.C.--As the Iron Age began, the demand for iron increased tremendously, and Greece found itself with only small iron deposits.  Somehow—Phoenician traders on the Aegean-side island of Euboea? Returnees from Mycenaean refugia? (3)—Euboean mariners became aware of the big easily mined deposits (4) on the island of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany.  By this time, though, approaches to Elba were already under the control of aggressive Villanovan tribal settlements near this coast, trading with Sardinia--and farming a remarkably fertile soil (5).  The best the Euboeans could do was set up at Pithecusae (3) on a temporarily abandoned corner of the island of Ischia off the coast of Campania, well to the south, with nice hot springs.  From there they could approach discreetly.  This worked out to the extent that some iron ore was brought to Pithecusae and smelted there (3).  Apparently access to the iron was traded for superior ceramics from Euboea and from Corinth.  The colonists at Pithecusae seemingly ignored the Campanian tribes nearest them except to select wives (3). 

So at this point, about 750 B.C., we have a trade route from Euboea to Tuscany via Corinth, the straits of Messina (where Euboeans set up a guard post), and Ischia. Tectonic controls on this route on the Italian end involve the location of Elban iron ore, formed above a subduction zone (4), fertile soils on superpotassic young volcanic rocks of the Roman volcanic field above this zone (5), and maybe the hot springs on Ischia, part of the Campi Flegrei volcanic field, all thought to be related to the same subduction zone dipping under mainland Italy and intersecting the surface about 130 km to the east, separating the African and Eurasian plates (6).  Of course on the Greek end this route follows plate boundaries at the surface more closely (6).  As we’ll see, this trade route established a pattern for future routes for almost a millennium.

725 B.C.--If we look at this part of Italy just these few years later, we find that the Euboeans have shouldered aside some Campanian tribes to establish a mainland colony at nearby Cuma, where agriculture is easier (3).  Villanovans have acquired an appreciation of the advantages of iron tools and weapons, and a voracious appetite for Greek goods of all sorts (7).  In this period they transform, from buyers of iron goods made from their own ores, to smelting them themselves, manufacturing iron tools and weapons, and exporting some of the iron. The wealth and military power this brings allows a burst of Villanovan expansion, much of it southward along the same coast to the Campanian tribal areas ignored by the Greeks (8).  They had already chosen where to go with this expansion (9)—coastal plains that had the same volcanic soils as their homelands up north in southern Etruria (5), soils they knew how to take advantage of.  These coastal plains had much earlier been blanketed with thick volcanic ash (10) with the same unusual composition as the Roman volcanic field, and accumulated more such ash as activity in the Campi Flegrei field continued.  This expansion thus follows the same tectonic trend marked by unusual volcanic activity at a constant distance from the surface trace of the plate boundary, but in the reverse direction as the Greek trade route.

700 B.C.—Cultural change in Etruria is so fast that the Villanovans are now called Etruscans, having entered on their Orientalizing period (7), so named from their massive imports and imitation of arts from Greece and points farther east and southeast.  The Etruscans are by now a major factor in the economics of the Mediterranean, resulting in great wealth of those Etruscan settlements able to control the iron trade (7).  Etruscans influence becomes hegemony, seemingly wherever in Italy they choose (11).  Soon, however, Etruscans find themselves competing with a number of Greek polities that have been attracted by southern Italy and established colonies there.  Both Etruscan and Greek influence transforms other tribal cultures in Italy into sophisticated cultures and formidable opponents; one of these on former Etruscan soil is Rome, located at a particularly strategic spot for control of the same trade route.

Tectonic context of trade and cultural evolution

Propagation of trade between Greece and Italy, and then within Italy, was initially controlled by a 400-km long chain of three natural features—Elban iron deposits, and fertile soils in south Etruria and on coastal plains of Campania—at approximately the same distance from the surface trace of the boundary of the Eurasian and African plates along the Adriatic coast.  This distance, about 130 km, apparently corresponds to the depth of melting along the subduction zone that dips under these features, and all three features have been related to position above this zone (4,5).  Thus unlike the closer spatial correspondence observed elsewhere between tectonic plate boundaries and ancient trade routes propagating to complex cultures (6), in Italy propagation was toward igneous features related to the plate boundary at depth.  Seismic activity along this trend is moderate—though most towns have a seismic story to tell!

But this prosaic description ignores the rapidity of the Villanovan-Etruscan cultural transition about 750-720 B.C.  The evolution was set in motion by the colonization of Euboean Greeks perhaps as early as 800 B.C., or as late as 750 B.C., of the Ischian site of Pithecusae.  The Villanovans incorporated Greek goods and ideas so rapidly into their culture (within 0-80 years, depending in which dates one uses) that scholars until recently thought the Villanovans and Etruscans might be two different cultures.  The wealth that exploitation of their iron deposits provided, first by Greeks and then by themselves, helped create within this narrow time interval both a creative culture, admittedly inspired by Greek roots, and a military power armed with state-of-the-art iron weapons, the first in the western Mediterranean.   As we have seen, the wealth is an indirect result of young tectonic activity, and trade with an apparently inspiring culture steeped in tectonic activity.  One wonders whether a cultural transformation this rapid could be duplicated in tectonically quiescent settings. Perhaps the Villanovans were already accustomed to change, partly by their local volcanic activity and moderate seismicity.  
The different responses of two cultures, Villanovan and Euboean Greek, to the same geologic environment is also striking.   Rather than environmental determinism, this would seem environmental opportunism--opportunities each saw through its own cultural lens.

Notes

1. In addition to my trip to Etruria in 2010; see my post of Aug. 6, 2011

2. Explanatory materials at museums and sites are incorporated in my description also; these include from south to north Padula (for Sala Consilina), Velia, Eboli, Paestum (for Capodofiume), Hera Argive, Pontagnano, Lacco Ameno (x2), Cuma, Capua, Rome (x2), Veii, Cerveteri, Tarquinia, Vulci, Orvieto, Volterra, and Florence.  Pietro Labate is thanked for guidance to the more obscure sites of upland southern Lazio. 

3. Ridgway 1984, Coldstream 2003

4. Benvenuti et al. 2004

5. Peccerillo 2005.  For soil implications see my posting for Aug. 6, 2011

6. Shown for example by Force 2008, Force and McFadgen 2010

7. Barker and Rasmussen 1998, Haynes 2000, Sorrentino 1992

8. Fredericksen 1979, D’Agostino 2001

9. La Geniere 1979

10. Fedele et al. 2002, Self 2006; known as the IC Ignimbrite

11. Camporeale 2001

References

Barker, G., and Rasmussen, T., 1998, The Etruscans: Blackwell, Oxford

Benvenuti, M., Boni, M., and Meinert, L., 2004, Skarn deposits in southern Tuscany and Elba Island (central Italy): 32^nd International Geological Congress (Florence) field trip guidebook B18, 24 p.

Camporeale, G., ed., 2001, The Etruscans outside Etruria:  Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Coldstream, N., 2003, Geometric Greece: Routledge, London, 453 p.

D’Agostino, B., 2001, The Etruscans in Campania, in The Etruscans outside Etruria, G. Camporeale, ed.: Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Fedele, F. G., Giaccio, B., Isaia, R. & Orsi, G., 2002, Ecosystem impact of the Campanian ignimbrite eruption in Late Pleistocene Europe: Quaternary Research v. 57, p. 420–424. (doi:10.1006/qres.2002.2331).

Force, E. R., 2008, Tectonic environments of ancient civilizations in the eastern hemisphere:  Geoarchaeology, v. 23, p. 644-653.

Force, E. R., and McFadgen, B. G., 2010, Tectonic environments of ancient civilizations:  opportunities for archaeoseismological and anthropological studies:  Geological Society of America Special Paper 471, p. 21-28.

Fredericksen, M., 1979, The Etruscans in Campania, in Italy before the Romans, D. and F. R. Ridgway, eds.: Academic Press, London, p. 277-312

Haynes, S., 2000, Etruscan civilization—a cultural history: Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 432 p.

La Geniere, J.D., 1979, The Iron Age in southern Italy, in Italy before the Romans, D. and F. R. Ridgway, eds.: Academic Press, London, p. 59-94.

Peccerillo, A., 2005, Plio-Quaternary volcanism in Italy:  Springer, New York, 379 p.

Ridgway, D., 1984, The first western Greeks:  Cambridge, Cambridge.

Self, S., 2006, The effects and consequences of very large explosive volcanic eruptions:  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, v. 364, p. 2073-2097.

Sorrentino, G., 1992, The Etruscans in the museums of Rome:  DVG, Rome