Discoveries by Andrea Carandini on Rome's Palatine Hill have also yielded evidence of a series of fortification walls on the north slope that can be dated to the middle of the 8th century BC. According to the legend, Romulus ploughed a furrow (sulcus) around the hill in order to mark the boundary of his new city. The name of Rome There is no consensus on the etymology of the city's name. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) suggested Greek "" (), meaning "strength, vigor". A modern theory of etymology holds that the name of the city is of Etruscan origin (and perhaps the city itself, though this cannot be proven), derived from rumon, "river". Archaeology There is archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from about 14,000 years ago, but the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites. Several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, each hill between the sea and the Capitol was topped by a village (on the Capitol Hill, a village is attested since the end of the 14th century BC). In any case, the location that became the city of Rome was inhabited by Latin settlers from various regions, farmers and pastoralists, as evidenced by differences in pottery and burial techniques. The historical Latins were originally an Italic tribe who inhabited, from around 1000 BC, the Alban Hills. They later moved down into the valleys, which provided better land for agriculture. The island Isola Tiberina was the site of an important ancient ford. The area around the Tiber was particularly advantageous and offered notable strategic resources: the river was a natural border on one side, and the hills could provide a safe defensive position on the other side. This position would also have enabled the Latins to control the river and the commercial and military traffic on it from the natural observation point at Isola Tiberina. Moreover, road traffic could be controlled, since Rome was at the intersection of the principal roads to the sea coming from Sabinum (in the northeast) and Etruria (to the northwest). There is a wide consensus that the city developed gradually through the aggregation (synoecism) of several villages around the largest one on the Palatine. This aggregation,