The Villanovan culture was the earliest Iron Age culture of Central Italy and Northern Italy, abruptly following the Bronze Age Terramare culture and giving way in the 7th century BC to an increasingly orientalizing culture influenced by Greek traders, which was followed without a severe break by the Etruscan civilization. The Villanovan culture and people branched from the Urnfield culture of Central Europe. The Villanovans introduced iron-working to the Italian Peninsula, and they practiced cremation and buried the ashes of their dead in pottery urns of distinctive double-cone shape. Villanovan culture is regarded as the oldest phase of Etruscan civi...
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