North-eastern Italian regions are supposed to have played an important role in the transmission of cultural components and in communication between peninsular Italy and the Mediterranean world on the one hand and the Alpine districts and central Europe on the other. Recent developments in both field research and the analysis of bronze deposits permit scholars to understand better than in past years directions and modes of cultural and social contacts and change. The ongoing excavation at the coastal site of prehistoric Aquileia has in particular brought new light on the patterns of contact between two different settlement systems, that of the lowland sites in the coastal area of Friuli, looking at the Adriatic, and that of the hillforts in the highland and river valleys, provided with a crucial function in exchange activities with the North and North-East. Starting from the presentation of the new excavation data, the contribution will take into particular consideration symptoms of crisis, changes and innovation in population dynamics and settlement patterns of this complex cultural landscape. The aim is to offer a general picture of northern Adriatic from the Middle Bronze Age-Late Bronze Age transition well into the Final Bronze Age (14/13th – 11th century) dealing in particular with three interconnected themes: the role of nucleated lowland and coastal sites in receiving Adriatic cultural components in the MBA-early LBA; the circulation of metal and the role of social mobility in LBA–FBA; the innovative northern components contributing to the emergence of a the new world in the FBA.
