Le Bronze moyen et récent en Italie du Nord, Allemagne du Sud et Suisse et corrélation des systèmes chrono-culturels

This paper offers an updated status of knowledge compared to Haguenau’s 1988 Symposium. Northern Italy is subdivided into two distinct cultural areas, whose boundary is located just west of the river Oglio. Four horizons from the end of the Early Bronze Age until the Recent Bronze Age are retained for the north-western part: Monate-Mercurago → Viverone →Scamozzina-Monza → Canegrate; the first two are documented almost exclusively by settlements and the last two mainly by burials. For the central-eastern area, a chronological seriation in six phases – BM 1 → BM 2 A → BM 2 B → BM 3 → BR 1 → BR 2 – is based on the many stratigraphic sequences of pile dwellings and terramare, which can be correlated with the important necropolis of Olmo di Nogara. North of the Alps, the revised chronotypological Reinecke’s system is used: recent BzB, BzC1, BzC2, BzD1, BzD2. The essential principles of the Reinecke’ system are discussed and it is compared to the historico-cultural view of F. Holste, to emphasize the differences between them, because they are too often confused. New discoveries – hoards and settlements – show that the “Tumulus culture” does not follow directly to the Straubing’s one in Bavaria. Instead there is an intermediate period of a considerable duration – Arbon-Landsberg/Sengkofen- Jellenkofen –, as evidenced also by the imposing tell stratigraphies of the middle Danube area. A cultural change occurs towards the recent BzB and the “Tumulus culture” flourish fully in the BzC phase. In Switzerland, several settlements and cemeteries, already discussed in 1988, have been published and new sites investigated, leading to a better understanding of the end of the Early Bronze Age (BzA2b-c and early BzB), as well as from the Middle and Late Bronze Age that were poorly documented. Similar types of bronze objects and pottery are used to correlate the chronotypological phases South and North of the Alps, however cultural dynamics do not evolve at the same rhythm.