Changes in Subsistence, Settlement, and Social Interaction during the Neolithisation of the Western Mediterranean

Recent research on biogeography, settlement and subsistence strategies, and material resource exploitation indicates that Mesolithic and Neolithic lifeways in Italy were neither simple nor homogenous. Temporal and regional variations continue to be revealed through advances in absolute dating of sites, skeletal evidence for diet and disease, and patterns of raw material exploitation for ceramic and lithic artifacts.

A chronological reexamination of the appearance of domesticated animals and plants in the archaeological record suggests a widespread, rapid adoption of the first elements of the neolithic "package", and the simultaneous exchange of obsidian and cardial impressed ceramics. New stable isotope analyses of human skeletal remains from a number of Italian sites implies that marine foods were not a major component of the diet, even at coastal sites like Grotta dell'Uzzo and Arene Candide. It is possible then that the herding of domestic animals replaced hunting wild game in the Early Neolithic, providing a year-round reliable meat source. Sea crossings between the mainland and the islands of Corsica and Sardinia were probably infrequent, seasonal activities, but nevertheless resulted in the widespread distribution of Sardinian obsidian on the mainland, and of domesticated mainland animals on the islands.

In the Late Neolithic, substantial increases in settlement density parallel the widespread adoption of an agricultural way of life, while regionally diverse socio-religious architectural manifestations including platform-altars and elaborately decorated hypogean tombs also appear. It is argued that changes in subsistence and settlement led to differential access to territorial resources, resulting in new mechanisms of exchange, and new, complex systems of socio-cultural organization.