page_title: History of Legnano
section_title: Prehistory
hierarchical_section_title: History of Legnano / Prehistory
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Vaso campaniforme in argilla con decorazione geometrica.
context_page_description: Legnano, an Italian municipality of the Metropolitan City of Milan in the Alto Milanese, has a recorded history from the first mention of the Legnarello district to the present day.
  During the Middle Ages, Legnano was the site of an important battle wherein the Lombard League defeated Frederick Barbarossa. Because of that battle, Legnano is the only city other than Rome, capital of Italy, to be mentioned in the national anthem.
  Industry has had significant impact on Legnano's history and the municipality remains one of the most developed and industrialized in Italy.
context_section_description: The very earliest settlers in the Legnano area lived at a distance from the Olona so that its frequent flooding would not impair them. The most important archaeological finds in the area from before the Roman period were discovered in the slopes of the Olona valley. Excavations in this area uncovered numerous necropoli, usually bedecked with everyday items as grave goods. These early inhabitants are thought to have come from the Lagozza di Besnate site or from other stilt house cultures on the Varese lakes.
  The oldest finds in general in the municipal area are aurochs bones dated to the Würm glaciation, discovered in the San Giorgio area and now displayed at the Guido Sutermeister Civic Museum in Legnano. The oldest man-made find was made by Guido Sutermeister during excavations between 1926 and 1928 in the Legnanese, alongside miscellaneous Roman finds. The item, a fragment of a bell-shaped vase (pictured), made by the Remedello culture between 3400 BC to 2200 BC. The location of the discovery was a construction site for State Road 527 Bustese, near the municipal border with Castellanza. Although the nature of the relationship between the peoples along the Olona and the Remedello culture are unknown, it has been assumed they had commercial links.
  In the area of Legnano are found no traces of the early Bronze Age; there have been no finds made dated to between 2200 BC and 1400 BC. The next chronological find is from 800 years after the synthesis of the Remedello fragment, attributed to the Canegrate culture. Investigatory excavations found some 200 tombs, dated to the 13th century BC, and other finds that showed development until the Iron Age. Having been discovered in nearby Canegrate, these finds are definite evidence of prehistoric peoples in the area of present-day Legnano.
  In the 1980s,  dwellings dated from the 12th to the 10th centuries BC were discovered between Legnano and Castellanza. Archaeologists conjectured that these dwellings had stone foundations, wooden walls, and roofs made of several layers of dried leaves. Various household items were also discovered in these dwellings.
  Two bronze spearheads dated to the 9th and 8th centuries BC were discovered in 1892 and 1895 near Legnano. They have been attributed to the Golasecca culture. More Golasecca finds, this time household items, were discovered in 1925 and 1937 and were dated to the 5th and 4th centuries BC. In the course of these excavations, two more necropoli were unearthed that contained yet more household goods as well as funerary urns.
caption: A fragment of a bell-shaped vase made by the Remedello culture
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