ABSTRACT

Urbanization is a recurrent theme in Mediterranean archaeology of the early first millennium bc and one that has been revisited frequently in recent years.1 What is meant by urbanization (or, indeed, by a city) may vary according to time, place and scholarly or cultural tradition. As a process of development, urbanization overlaps state formation and questions of economic, socio-political and territorial organization. In Etruria, it most obviously concerns the origins and growth of the main centers, and their form, structure and function in a regional setting. The lives of many Etruscan cities extend for a millennium or more from the end of the Bronze Age, providing abundant material for multi-period narratives or site biographies, but they also raise difficult questions about the cause, pace and trajectory of change. The breadth and complexity of this topic permits only an introductory sketch, which considers the archaeological evidence for major cities during their first few centuries of life (circa 1000–500 bc). Priority is given here to settlement layout and the built environment, while territorial relationships, which tend to highlight economic and political questions and have been the subject of much important work, can only be touched on.