(I) Archaeological evidence indicates that between 2000 and 1000 BC, Italy was settled by waves of immigrants speaking Indo- European languages. (II) These people were shepherds and farmers and brought with them the horse, the wheeled cart and the ability to make tools from bronze. (III) Around 900 BC, they appear to have acquired the ability to use another metal, iron. (IV) The Alps posed no effective barrier to the invasion of the Italian peninsula by barbarian tribes. (V) A sub-group of these Iron-Age Indo-Europeans became the ancestors of the Romans.