Riti di commensalità e cultura materiale nelle società della prima età del Ferro in Italia medio-tirrenica

In the light of the theoretical framework long been developed by the Anglo-American anthropological archaeology, which affords a major social and political importance to commensality within most complex societies, the paper outlines some examples of the many forms of ritualized consumption of alcoholic beverages in Early Iron Age Middle Tyrrhenian Italy. It specifically analyses the emergence of a strong emphasis on ceremonial drinking practices in the funerary record of the ‘proto-urban centres’ in southern Etruria and Latium vetus between the ninth and eighth centuries BC. It also discusses the possibility that the various configurations of material culture aimed at the ritualized consumption of alcoholic beverages in the burials corresponded to a multiplicity of coexisting rituals, which might have involved different components in terms of gender, age and social position.