The trend towards more permanent settlements and diversified economies, already under way in Italy during the Final Bronze Age, continued unabated in the Iron Age and led to the development of distinct and stable regional cultures. The pace and extent of the change to regionalism, however, varied from one part of the peninsula to another; and scholarly investigation of it has been similarly uneven. The great importance and spectacular archaeology of Etruria have inevitably kept activity there at a high and constant level; Campania, too, has remained an area of intense interest, especially after the momentous discoveries on Ischia and at Pontecagnano; and Magna Graecia has at last begun to receive its due of careful scrutiny. But in the south-eastern, central and north-western parts of Italy exploration has been more sporadic. Nevertheless for them, too, the years since 1950 have brought a rapid accumulation of new knowledge, fresh assessments, and clearer perspectives; and it is with these areas, Apulia, the Mid-Adriatic region, the Italic Osco-Umbrian core of peninsular Italy and the Ligurian north west, that the present chapter is concerned.