Le Prealpi venete nell’età del Ferro: analisi e interpretazione di un paesaggio polisemico

The Veneto Prealps during the Iron Age: analysis and interpretation of a polysemic landscape - The Veneto Prealps defined by lake Garda to the west, river Brenta to the east have always been a natural passage between the alpine world and the Po plain. The highlands have always been easily reached from the Po plain, especially in the eastern part, thanks to the relatively gentle relief of the mountain ridges and the deep valleys running southwards: the main one is the Adige valley. On the west, the area of Piccole Dolomiti is more spectacular, but more difficult to go through; and again, the Asiago plateau offers a large flat area that can be easily exploited, and certainly was exploited since Roman times and earlier, from the Po plain. The chronological boundaries of the research are the 6th and the 1st centuries B.C. In these centuries great historical changes took place, involving Venetic people, Etruscans, Raeti, Celts and finally the Romans; because of its position, the study area, if did not experience directly the great social and historical changes of the period, did feel some effects of them. Scholars have always considered this area a borderland, important for metals, animal husbandry and trade between the people living in the Po plain and the people living to the north in the mountains of the Alpine chain. As a borderland, it has been considered not only a geographical borderland, but also a cultural, linguistic, economic and political one. Different people and influences have been placed one upon another over the long run, but this does not mean that we are not able to distinguish them and their organization, as this study aims to demonstrate.