In
the
field
of
European
recent
prehistory
it
is
generally
agreed
that,
from
the
Early
Orientalising
period,
Etruria
played
a
central
role
in
long-distance
trade,
acting
also
as
a
link
between
the
Aegean
and
eastern
Mediterranean
and
trans-Alpine
Europe.
A
widely
acknowledged
implication
is
that
this
primary
status
of
the
Etruscans
among
the
indigenous
peoples
of
Italy
was
a
secondary
effect
of
the
Greek
and
Phoenician
colonisation
in
the
central
Mediterranean.
It
is
the
aim
of
this
paper
to
show
that
Etruria
emerged,
as
early
as
the
Late
Bronze
Age,
as
a
complex
territorial,
political
and
economic
entity
and
was
able
to
participate
in
an
interregional
trade
network
that
extended
to
northern
Germany
and
the
Aegean.
By
the
beginning
of
the
Italian
Iron
Age,
this
region
was
organised
as
a
federation
of
early
states,
with
important
extensions
in
the
southern
Po
plain,
along
the
Adriatic
coast
and
in
Campania.
