Studying Coastal Resources and Resource Control in the Context of Early State Formation on the Tyrrhenian Coast (Italy)

In November 2021, the University of Groningen started the research project »Salt and Power, Early States, Rome and Resource Control«, funded by the Dutch Research Council1. In this project, an interdisciplinary team composed of the authors and supported by international colleagues, looks into the changing modes of salt production within the context of early state formation in Tyrrhenian Italy from the Bronze Age to the Roman period. We postulate that the Etruscan and Latin city states strived to control parts of the coastal area that were suited for salt production and related activities in order to meet the demand of their growing populations for salt and food preserved with salt (meat, fish, vegetables). In this paper, we first briefly describe the coastal landscapes in which we work and then discuss how the various coastal micro-regions characterizing the Tyrrhenian coast of Central Italy in the Early Iron Age became part of larger territories. To investigate the economic relationship between the exploitation of coastal resources and inland early states the team´s focus is on the production of salt as an indispensable commodity for human and animal life. In the conclusion, we will reflect on the tension between organically grown micro-regions and their importance within the geopolitical process of the formation of city state-controlled territories in Central Italy during the 1st millennium BCE. Table 1 gives an overview of the chronology of the main phases we are concerned with in this paper.