:<i>Historical Culture in Iron Age Italy: Archaeology, History, and the Use of the Past, 900–300 BCE</i>

Bernard's book represents a welcome addition to the scholarship on ancient Italian peoples.Its methodologi cal framework is innovative: it analyzes the archaeolo gical remains of preRoman peoples-a Romanocentric definition that Bernard generally avoids-looking for clues of "historical culture." This concept is broadly de fined: it includes the way in which these cultures per ceived, preserved, and used their past.The choice to conceive written histories, a cultural product imported from Greece, was just one of the many available alterna tives, but knowledge and use of the past did not depend solely on writing.This study, therefore, focuses mainly on archaeological sources.The innovation does not lie in the use of archaeology, but rather in using it as a pri mary factor in defining a historical culture, a task gener ally attributed mainly to historiography.A first methodological lesson comes from the intro duction (28): we should not separate history from myth but rather consider the historical importance of myth, something that has been done for Greek and Roman cul ture but much less for ancient Italy.Another important lesson concerns the use of the concept of "cultural koin" and the interpretation of archaeological material (30).Bernard stresses the role of maritime connectivity: sea access allowed distant places to develop similar charac teristics, while topographical vicinity, although certainly important, did not always guarantee the same degree of cultural affinity.Chapter 2, "Ancestors," analyzes the use of burials as a timedefining mechanism.The link between buri als and gentilician society is strong: from the Bronze to the Iron Age, in different parts of Italy, clusters of buri als became more and more frequent, witnessing a more conscious approach toward genealogy and, therefore, familybased time definition.When cults started to arise at burial sites, a tangible relationship emerged between past and present, a feature that is included in the very definition of historical culture.The cases of the great Etruscan tumuli (Grotta Porcina, Sodo 2 in Cortona,