Death from the mountains

Vesuvius erupted in its usual horrendous fashion during the Early Bronze Age, around 1900 BC. This event delivered an “Avellino Pumice” layer throughout coastal and northeast Campania.

Per Claude Albore Livadie, Mark Pearce, Matteo Delle Donnede, and Natascia Pizzano, "The effects of the Avellino Pumice eruption on the population of the Early Bronze age Campanian plain (Southern Italy)": the eruption didn’t do all that much harm… at first. Livadie et al. note that the same people (well, people speaking the same language, anyway) resettled the region. For the most part.

Livadie et al. do note more tree pollen after the event. They think that the bulk of the resettlement aimed at such regions as weren’t so prone to forest – like hills. The motive the scholars ascribe is defence.

Another eruption, labeled “AP1”, was less intense but triggered more tree pollen. “AP2”, around 1700 BC, was weaker still; it didn’t even reach the coast. But AP2 coincided with the end of the Campanian farming culture, to be replaced by the “proto-Apennine” cattle culture (which I think is OscoUmbrian).

So what did the Campanians speak before all that? Although a farm culture they did use cattle (the Bronze Age tractor). Candidates I’d entertain include an Italic branch, a pre-Italic IndoEuropean outlier, some relative of Etruscan, a language-family now unknown, even a Berber offshoot. But I don’t think there is any way for us to know as yet.