Editing Iapodes (section)

==Culture and society==

Due to the rich and extensive forests of their mountainous country, their houses were mostly wooden huts, and they rarely used stone constructions except in some major fortifications. Their settlements were mostly on hilltops, including between 400–3,000 dwellers, and the main Iapodian settlements in Roman times were ''[[Metulum]]'', ''[[Terpon]]'', ''[[Arupium]]'' and ''[[Avendo]]''.

They cultivated chiefly cereals and grapes, and kept varied cattle. Their early metallurgy developed a half millennium before Celtic influence that induced here minor modifications. Their society was simple including warriors, villagers, herdsmen, miners, and metalworkers. In that early phase neither leaders nor elite were indicated, and these independent Iapodes had no detectable collective political organisation. Under the Romans, a Romanized elite emerged, led by the ''praepositus Iapodum'' installed by Romans.

Their classical culture was a varied mixture of Pannonian, Illyrian, Greek and Roman influences, mostly without proper peculiarities. Their figural art included the frequent metal decorations in the form of triangles and spirals, and [[Illyrian amber jewellery|large amber pearls and amber figurines]]. The Iapodian language before the Romans is mostly unknown: the only indications available are their toponyms and necropolis inscriptions from Roman times. These scarce onomastic indications suggest the Iapodian tongue may be correlated with other Illyrian and Pannonian tribes. During their independence, the Iapodes appear to have been completely illiterate and left no inscriptions before the Roman conquest.