Changing Patterns of Settlement, Subsistence, and Social Interaction in Neolithic Sardinia

Recent research on island biogeography, settlement and subsistence strategies, and lithic resource exploitation indicates that neolithic lifeways in Sardinia were neither simple nor homogenous. The apparent two-phase adoption of the "neolithic package" was paralleled by shifts in settlement patterns and exchange networks. Regionally diverse socio-religious architectural manifestations including platform-altars and elaborately decorated hypogean tombs also appear in the Late Neolithic, while grave goods suggest the beginnings of social differentiation. It is argued that changes in settlement and subsistence led to differential access to territorial resources, resulting in new mechanisms of exchange, and new systems of social dynamics.