Daunians

Daunian pot, Terracotta, Subgeometric style (Daunian II), 550-400 BC

The Daunians (Template:Lang-el; Template:Lang-la) were an Iapygian tribe that inhabited northern Apulia in classical antiquity. Two other Iapygian tribes, the Peucetians and the Messapians, inhabited central and southern Apulia respectively. All three tribes spoke the Messapic language, but had developed separate archaeological cultures by the seventh century BC. However, in Daunian territory Oscan language was spoken as well, as evidenced by the legends of locally-minted coins.

The Daunians lived in the Daunia region, which extended from the Daunian Mountains river in the southeast to the Gargano peninsula in the northwest. This region is mostly coincident with the Province of Foggia and part of Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani today.

Name

The ethnonym is connected to the name of the wolf, plausibly the totemic animal of this nation. The cult of the wolf was widespread in ancient Italy and was related to the Arcadian mystery cult. Daunos means wolf, according to ancient glosses, and is cognate with Greek τηαυνος (thaunos) (compare τηēριον (thērion) in the lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria), from an Indo-European root *dhau- 'to strangle', meaning literally 'strangler'. Among the Daunian towns one may mention Lucera (Leucaria) and among other nations the ethnonym of the Lucani (Loucanoi) and that of the Hirpini, from another word meaning 'wolf'. The outcome of the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirate *dh is proper to the Illyrian languages and so is different from the corresponding Latin faunus and Oscan, which is not attested.

Origins

Daunian Stele, limestone grave marker (?), 610-550 BC

Daunian subgeometric Kyathos, 550–440 BC

At the end of the Bronze Age (11th-10th centuries BC) and during the transition to the Iron Age, Illyrian groups from the eastern Adriatic migrated to Italy. The descendants of the tribes which arrived in Apulia, collectively known as the Iapygians, were the Peucetians, Messapians and Daunians. The broader region was inhabited by Italic peoples of Southern Italy with whom the Iapygians maintained contacts; among them are the Ausones/Oscans, Sabines, Lucani, Paeligni, Bruttii, Campanians, Aequi, Samnites and Frentani. Strabo in a mythological construction to explain the foundation of Taranto, connects the Iapygians with Cretans. Strabo recounts that they were descendants of Iapyx and a Cretan woman. Archaeological material shows little contact between Iapygians and Greek colonists. The retroactive ascription of a Cretan or Arkadian heritage for the Iapygians was simply constructed for political purposes of the time these sources were written.

Genetics

A genetic study published in 2022 examined DNA extracted from three necropoleis: Ordona, Salapia and San Giovanni Rotondo, which during the Iron Age have been linked to the Daunian region. Most samples from Ordona and Salapia date to the Daunian period and some samples from San Giovanni Rotondo date more broadly to the Iron Age. Paternal haplogroups of seven Iron Age samples were identified. Three paternal lineages of the Iron Age samples belong to J-M241, one of them could be further processed as J-L283+. Two samples belonged to I-M223, one could be further processed as I-Y3670. Two samples belonged to R-M269 and R-P312.

Iron Age Daunians showed the highest autosomal affinity with Early Iron Age Illyrian populations from Croatia and populations which were formed in Italy in the Roman Republican era, which both can be broadly included in a pan-Mediterraean genetic continuum (stretching from Crete and the Levant to Republican Rome and the Iberian peninsula). Links to Minoans/Crete and Iron Age Greeks/Arkadia are less likely. A parsimonious explanation of the Daunian's origin favors a genetic continuity between the Daunians and the population that inhabited the area prior to the historical period that was analyzed, although additional influences from Croatia (ancient Illyria) cannot be excluded, as described by the material remains and the available historical sources.

Presence in ancient Italy

The Daunii were similar to but also different from the Peucetii and Messapii, who settled in central and southern Puglia. Having been also less influenced by the Campanian civilization, it had thus a more peculiar culture, featuring in particular the Daunian steles, a series of funerary monuments sculpted in the 7th-6th centuries BC in the plain south of Siponto, and now mostly housed in the National Archeological Museum of Manfredonia. Particularly striking is the Daunian pottery (as yet little studied) which begins with geometric patterns but which eventually includes crude human, bird and plant figures.

The main Daunian centers were Teanum Apulum (within the modern San Paolo di Civitate), Uria Garganica, the location of which though is not known with certainty, Casone, Lucera, Merinum (Vieste), Monte Saraceno (near Mattinata), Siponto, Coppa Nevigata, Cupola, Salapia (near Cerignola and Manfredonia), Arpi (near Foggia), Aecae (near Troia), Vibinum (Bovino), Castelluccio dei Sauri, Herdonia (Ordona), Ausculum (Ascoli Satriano), Ripalta (near Cerignola), Canosa di Puglia, Lavello and Venosa.

There are numerous testimonies among ancient authors (Pseudo-Scylax, Virgil, Festus, Servius) of a presence of the Daunians beyond the Apennines in Campania and Latium where some towns claimed Diomedian origins. The most notable instance is Ardea, the centre of the Rutulians who were considered Daunians: Vergil writes that Turnus' father was Daunus. Festus writes that a King Lucerus of Ardea fought along with Romulus against Titus Tatius and this is the origin of the name of the Roman Luceres.

Table pedestal (trapezophoron) in polychrome marble with two griffins devouring a deer (from a Daunian grave of the 4th century BC).

Culture

The Iron Age Daunian material culture persisted quite different from their Italic neighbours until the region was encompassed into the Roman Republic in the 3rd century BC. This cultural distinction was due in part because of their geographical area, which was distant from the Ancient Greek centres of Magna Graecia, and in part because of their close relations with the peoples on the other coast of the Adriatic Sea with whom they retained direct contacts across the sea.

Genetics

A genetic study published in Oxford University Press in January 2022 examined the remains of 16 individuals from three archaeological sites geographically located in Northern Apulia, radiocarbon dated between 1157 and 275 calBCE, in the territory of the Daunians, and found their genetic profile to be compatible with an at least partial autochthonous origin, with plausible contributions from the Balkan peninsula. Among the 9 Daunian male individuals, 3 were found to belong to haplogroup R1b, 3 were found to belong to haplogroup J2b and the remaining ones were found to belong to Haplogroup I-M170.

See also

• Tavoliere delle Puglie
• Daunian pottery
• List of ancient Illyrian peoples and tribes

Sources

• Aneli, Serena; Saupe, Tina; Montinaro, Francesco; Solnik, Anu; Molinaro, Ludovica; Scaggion, Cinzia; Carrara, Nicola; Raveane, Alessandro; Kivisild, Toomas; Metspalu, Mait; Scheib, Christiana; Pagani, Luca (2022). "The genetic origin of Daunians and the Pan-Mediterranean southern Italian Iron Age context". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 39 (2). doi:10.1093/molbev/msac014. PMC 8826970. PMID 35038748.
• Carpenter, T. H.; Lynch, K. M.; Robinson, E. G. D., eds. (2014). The Italic People of Ancient Apulia: New Evidence from Pottery for Workshops, Markets, and Customs. New York City, New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139992701.
• Malkin, Irad (2003). Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052152024X.
• Norman, Camilla (2018). "Illyrian Vestiges in Daunian Costume: tattoos, string aprons and a helmet". In Gianfranco De Benedittis (ed.). Realtà medioadriatiche a confronto: contatti e scambi tra le due sponde. Atti del convegno Termoli 22-23 luglio 2016. Campobasso: Università degli Studi del Molise. pp. 57–71.