CAECINA Contacts and Acculturation in Classical Etruria: Images, Notions, Artefacts Only in the VII century BC did Etruscan society truly took shape, in connection with the intensification of commercial relationships between Central Italy and the Oriental and Greek worlds; from that moment, and until its disappearance in the I century BC, it can be caracterized both by a very high openness to foreign influences, and by a very high level of originality. In order to reach a better understanding of that highly exceptional phenomenon, and the way it worked, we have chosen to divide our project into four research areas. 1. Territory and boundaries The study of Etruscan territory and society has been too often artificially divided between northern and southern components, for reasons depending both on Etruscan historiography, and on modern administrative divisions of this territory. The creation, for this region, of an original tool, already successfully developed elsewhere, the Atlas de l’Âge du Fer, should help us to understand the evolution of the Etruscan culture as a whole. The excavation of an exceptional Etruscan/Hellenistic rock-cut tomb will allow us to increase our knowledge of an important source of social change, contact with Macedonia and Asia Minor, during a key-period of the Etruscan history. Finally, the study of the boundaries of the Etruscan peoples, hitherto very hypothetically drawn, both in historiography and in their historical reality, will allow us to go further in the study of the influence of the Italic peoples – Ligurians, Umbrians, Sabines and Latins...– who had close contacts with the Etruscans. 2. Celtic and Etruscan societies However, some of the major sources of changes in the Etruscan society came not from autochtonous people, but through contacts with the Celtic tribes who came to settle, at various successive periods, chiefly in Northern Italy, and particularly in an area which Etruscans had dominated for a long time, Emilia-Romagna and the Marche. Therefore, this region offers a very important field for the analysis of cultural and anthropological phenomena, in a melting pot which mixed autochtonous people, Etruscan and Celtic cultures. Close study of this interface should throw light on its consequences for the evolution of the Etruscan culture. In particular, we will study the aristocracies of this society on the boundaries. 3. Harbours and landing places The coast, another boundary, represents a fundamental buffer zone which has not so far been thoroughly studied in the context of the processes of ancient contact and exchange, and their consequences on the evolution of the Etruscan society. Therefore, we intend to study it through a detailed case-study : the coast and ports of the major Etruscan metropolis of Caere, which was precociously involved in exchanges with the Mediterranean world, at very impressive scale; later, the foundation of various Roman colonies in this very area caused deep transformations in rural and urban society. 4. The evolution of Etruscan language This field, highly transversal, is intended as strictly interdependant on the other three. We will try to understand better the metamorphoses of the Etruscan society in two different ways : a purely linguistic approach, in order to bring into focus the nature and intensity of contacts between Etruscans and other Italic or Celtic people and their linguistic consequences, and a study of the Etruscan vocabulary of social relationships, whose evolution can help us to understand the modifications connected with these contacts, and, subsequently, with the Roman conquest. Through these diversified approaches, using the combination of concrete case-studies with broader archaeological investigations, as well as seminars and colloquia, should give usa new and enriched vision of the question of the rise, evolution and final disappearance of Etruscan culture and society.