Canegrate culture

The Canegrate culture was a civilization of Prehistoric Italy who developed from the recent Bronze Age (13th century BC) until the Iron Age, in the areas of what are now western Lombardy, eastern Piedmont, and Ticino. Canegrate represented a completely new cultural dynamic to the area expressed in pottery and bronzework making it a typical example of the western Hallstatt culture.

The name comes from the locality of Canegrate in Lombardy, south of Legnano and 25 km north of Milan, where Guido Sutermeister discovered important archaeological finds (approximately 50 tombs with ceramics and metallic objects). The site was first excavated in 1926 in the area of Rione Santa Colomba, and systematic excavation occurred between March 1953 and autumn 1956, which led to the discovery of a necropolis of 165 tomb. It is one of the richer archeological sites of Northern Italy.

The necropolis found in Canegrate is very similar to those realized in the same period in the north of Alps. It represents the first migratory wave of the proto-Celtic population from the northwest part of the Alps that, through the Alpine passes, had already penetrated and settled in the western Po valley between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como (Scamozzina culture). They brought a new funerary practice—cremation—which supplanted inhumation.

From the archaeological evidence it can be deduced that their interactions with the native populations had not been completely peaceful. The uniform and isolated Canegrate finds do not show any trace of the preceding Polada culture, nor do they provide evidence for a gradual Canegrate insertion into the area.

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