The (Possible) Tursi Tumulus Burial near Matera and the Relationships between southern Italy and the Aegean-Balkan Area in the First Half of the 3rd Millennium B.C.

The author discusses the presence, in the Italian peninsula, of the principal elements (besides the kind of funerary structure) generally considered, under the traditional hypothesis, to be linked to the tumuli cultural world between the second half of the 4th millennium and the first half of the 3rd millennium B.C.: that is, the use of the horse; wagons; hammer-axes and mace-heads; anthropomorphic stelae; corded ware; hammer- (or T-) headed pins. He proposes two phases of weak contacts with that cultural world, with some differences between central and Southern Italy, ascribing the (possible) Tursi tumulus to the context of the second phase.Cazzella Alberto. The (Possible) Tursi Tumulus Burial near Matera and the Relationships between southern Italy and the Aegean-Balkan Area in the First Half of the 3rd Millennium B.C.. In: Ancestral Landscape. Burial mounds in the Copper and Bronze Ages (Central and Eastern Europe – Balkans – Adriatic – Aegean, 4th-2nd millennium B.C.) Proceedings of the International Conference held in Udine, May 15th-18th 2008. Lyon : Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux, 2012. pp. 597-606. (Travaux de la Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée. Série recherches archéologiques, 58