Such settlement as there had been in south-eastern Etruria prior to the Early Iron Age had been established by small groups of pioneers moving up the river valleys from the Tiber. The first Early Iron Age settlers came instead from the west, overland, a difference of orientation which from the very outset made itself felt in the resulting pattern of settlement and communications. The first settlers of Veii seem to have come from the neighbourhood of Tarquinia or Vulci, along a line that is marked by the Villanovan sites in the Vesca and Biedano valleys and that of Monte Sant'Angelo on the crest of the Monti Sabatini, between the Lago di Martignano and the Baccano crater. From Monte Sant'Angelo, 11 km. north-west of Veii, there is a continuous ridgeway track leading down to Veii itself, a track which right down to Roman times was to remain Veii's principal outlet to the north.