This project investigates the relationships among diet, climate and social and cultural change, in prehistoric Sardinia (Italy) between the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (ca. 4000-1900 BC). In order to test different ways of explaining the change in the archaeological evidence, Luca Lai, under Dr. R.H. Tykot's supervision, will use bone within a broad scale integrative context. Using isotopic data he will generate quantitative data regarding diet and climate and combine these with more standard archaeological information to detect economic change and elucidate the underlying dynamics.
Prehistoric Sardinia has attracted the interest of archaeologists for its outstanding architecture in the form of elaborate rock-carved tombs, megaliths and sanctuaries. These have been interpreted in social terms, as change from tribal to more complex organizational structures. However, the diet and economy underlying these phenomena, and their interaction with climate and culture, are poorly understood. Models to explain change in the material culture are quite diverse: some emphasize innovations, such as the plow and dairying, for the accumulation of wealth and the origin of inequality. Others stress the continuity in the resource pool, and minimize social differences. All overlook climate change. Mr. Lai will address these questions through stable isotope analyses of human bone tissue: this key component in dietary reconstruction, never applied before to Sardinia, will allow the relative contribution of different food categories - fish, plant foods, animal products - to be determined. This dataset will allow a number of questions to be addressed. Was there a shift from farming to herding over time and space? Does this variation (or lack thereof) correlate best with known cultural and organizational differences, or with wet/dry climatic shifts recorded in the western Mediterranean?
Climate-driven economic shifts and unintended consequences of landscape utilization may have led in the past as today, to social disruptions and/or adjustments. This project, in documenting the diverse factors potentially responsible for cultural change, can yield important insights into human responses to climate variation in fragile environments worldwide, and contribute to understanding both past and present sustainability.
