Description:

As was the case throughout most of the Mediterranean, for the prehistoric (Indigenous) Nuragic communities of Sardinia, the Iron Age was a period of profound social and political transformations. Many long-existing settlements were abandoned, other communities reorganized themselves, and a small number of ritual centers grew into major sanctuaries that also served as venues for elite encounters and display of prestige and power. At the same time, networks of overseas connections expanded and exchanges intensified, which included Phoenicians settling among existing Indigenous communities; eventually, they also established their own separate settlements. Amidst all these changes, local communities developed a strong sense of place and belonging and, in particular, references to the older Nuragic past rapidly became commonplace and eventually even hallmarks of the Iron Age.
 
While the broad outlines of Phoenician exploration and subsequent Carthaginian occupation of southern Sardinia and other regions across the West Mediterranean are for the most well documented, we are much less, if at all, informed about local perceptions of and Indigenous involvement in these so-called colonial processes, as these played out over multiple centuries of the first millennium BCE.
 
In this presentation, I draw on a decade of extensive excavations at nuraghe S’Urachi and other research in the field and laboratory to sketch a picture of the Iron Age and its social transformations in central western Sardinia from an Indigenous perspective. By highlighting key aspects of daily life and community organization among Indigenous communities of this region, my aim is to explore the dynamics and its key features of local cultural continuity and persistence in Iron Age Sardinia.