The Proto-Villanovan culture (approximately 1175 BCE – 960 BCE) was a late Bronze Age culture that appeared in Italy, part of the central European Urnfield culture system of Central Europe (1300–750 BCE).

A supranational cultural facies, it spread across much of Italy, including eastern Sicily and the Aeolian Islands. It was characterized by the funerary ritual of cremation.

The "Protovillanovan" culture (a term introduced by Giovanni Patroni in 1937) is included within the broader Urnfield culture network of Central Europe (German: Urnenfelder), and shows particular similarities with regional groups north of the Eastern Alps, specifically those of Bavaria–Upper Austria and the Middle Danube.

According to the American archaeologist Malcolm H. Wiener:

The Protovillanovan culture is linked to the Urnfield culture of Bavaria and Upper Austria [...]. Proto-Villanovan characteristics appear at Frattesina in Veneto alongside surviving elements of the earlier Terramare culture of the nearby Po Valley, and eventually spread in attenuated form throughout Italy and into eastern Sicily.

— Peter M. Fischer & Teresa Bürge (eds.), Sea Peoples' Up-to-Date: New Research on Transformation in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 13th–11th Centuries BCE, 2017, p. 54

According to Francesco di Gennaro, the Protovillanovan culture also shows northern affinities with the Lusatian culture and the Canegrate culture:

The decoration of the pottery shows northern affinities (Lusatia, Canegrate), and the Protovillanovan phenomenon displays some similarities with the transalpine Urnfield civilization.