Excavations throughout Italy reveal a modern human presence dating back to the Paleolithic period, some 200,000 years ago.

The Italic tribes of pre-Roman Italy — such as the Umbrians, the Latins (from which the Romans emerge), Volsci, Samnites, the Celts and the Ligures which inhabit northern Italy, and many others — are mostly of Indo-European stock; main historic peoples of non-Indo-European heritage include the Etruscans, the Elymians and Sicani in Sicily and the prehistoric Sardinians.Between the 17th and the 11th century BCE, Mycenaean Greeks establish contacts with Italy.