Black-gloss wares provide archaeologists with a “sign-post” artifact of the Republican period before the appearance of the first Arretine sigillata. This chapter argues for a more complex approach to black-gloss wares: first, as established by Lamboglia six decades ago, black-gloss pottery was produced in different regions of Italy, and in a variety of shapes and fabrics. Second, black-gloss pottery by necessity forms an anachronistic analytical category since, in reality, its boundaries to other types of ceramic wares may have been much more fluid. Third, chronology imposes another factor of variability, involving significant changes in the morphological repertoires and the geographical locations of black-gloss production over three centuries. Black-gloss pottery has the potential to provide pivotal evidence to explain patterns of cultural change that undoubtedly question many of the central tenets of older approaches to “Romanization” as a homogenizing phenomenon.