ABSTRACT
Iron Age Sardinia is often defined by its Phoenician or Carthaginian settlements, or at best its interactions with foreign colonists, while the native populations are largely ignored (Bernardini 2007). In fact, throughout its history, Sardinia has usually been seen as an island that submits to change rather than being proactive; as such it fits in well with generally conceived ideas of islands as isolated and ‘insular’ (Broodbank 2000; Rainbird 2007; Waldren 2002). But although it was largely autonomous in the Bronze Age with its indigenous culture organised around local chiefdoms and based on a network of ‘cantons’ (Russell, this volume), from the thirteenth century onwards Sardinia became part of the connectivity networks that characterised the changes from the Bronze to Iron Age in the Mediterranean. From the ninth century onwards, its central position in the western Mediterranean meant that it was ideally placed for interaction with the increasing number of people from overseas; these renewed and intensified contacts led Sardinians to develop a greater awareness of their different identities within the island. By taking the examples of a few north Sardinian sites, this study examines how differences in local identities emerged in the Iron Age and how such differences were represented in the material record. I argue that the islanders’ relationship with their landscape, their mobility and their connectivity were important factors in transforming their identities throughout the first millennium . Traditionally, discussions of prehistoric Sardinian identities have been framed
around the divide between local and indigenous Sardinians and incoming foreign settlers. ˆis colonial focus has tended to force us to see Sardinia in dualist terms (them and the ‘other’), but if instead we concentrate on the materiality of the indigenous populations, we can unlock information that usually remains hidden from such colonialist perspectives (van Dommelen 2006: 115-16). I focus on northern Sardinia, a part of the island often ignored during the Iron Age because it was never colonised. Rather it was a contact zone where interaction between locals and foreigners was more sporadic and equal (Alexander 1998) and would have shaped
local culture in a variety of ways. By highlighting the types of contact between indigenous communities and foreign peoples, and by emphasising local geography and landscape as well as the material culture of the inhabitants, I examine the differences between local identities as defined in the Introduction to this volume (p. 2-4). To see identity as transitory (Introduction, p. 2) helps us to bridge the gap between what has traditionally been seen as the Nuragic culture of the Bronze Age and the Sardinians of the classical period and later. ˆe broad questions I ask are: (1) how long did the Nuragic culture continue in the north; (2) can we see an increasing regionalisation as Bronze Age culture was transformed; and (3) what does the evidence of contact tell us about Sardinian society or societies during this period?
