Pre-Nuragic Sardinia

[4] The oldest complete human skeleton (renamed "Amsicora") was found in 2011 in the territory of Arbus, it dates back to about 7,000 BC, the period of transition between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic.

Since 1968, the excavations carried out by archaeologists Enrico Atzeni and Gérard Bailloud in a rock shelter on the limestone hills in the territory of Sirri called "Su Carroppu", found various coarse ceramics of a black-grey color decorated with the imprint of Cerastoderma edule along with tools made of obsidian from the Monte Arci.

[7] There were also found the remains of ancient meals, with the discovery of bones of animals such as deer, Prolagus sardus, wild boar, thus documenting an economy based on farming, hunting and fishing.

The cave was subsequently investigated by the archaeologists VR Switsur and David H. Trump, who discovered a sequence of different cultures spread over a very long period of time.

The researchers noted the almost complete disappearance of the earlier forms of pottery decoration and the appearance of large greenstone rings, also common in Corsica and the Italian peninsula.

[10] It takes its name from the "Sanctuary of Our Lady of Bonu Ighinu" ("good neighbor" in Sardinian language), in the municipality of Mara, near which is the "cave of de Tintirriolu", a place in which were discovered a considerable amount of pottery with zoomorphic and anthropomorphic handles.

At this site there have been numerous discoveries of female figurines depicting the so-called "Mother Goddess", whose postulated worship was widespread in much of Europe and in the Mediterranean during the Neolithic, represented in many different ways: standing, sitting, or while breastfeeding.

In fact, in that site were found finely crafted vases, elegantly decorated with geometric designs incised on clay and painted with red ocher.

The Sub-Ozieri culture (also called "Red Ozieri"), dated between 2850 and 2700 BC, is a continuation, particularly in the central and southern part of Sardinia,[14] of the previous phase of the Late Neolithic.

[15] These populations deified their ancestors with the erection of the statue menhir (mainly located in the central-western Sardinia) and built or restored the large megalithic temple of Monte d'Accoddi, near Sassari, most likely dedicated to the Sun god.

The main innovations are the "oven-shaped" tombs, individual graves that appeared in the Cagliari area, and the great megalithic walls of the central-northern part of the island like that of "Monte Baranta", near Olmedo.

In the following Chalcolithic period there is substantial genetic continuity and the proportions of the ancestral components of the Western Hunter-Gatherers and of Early European Farmers remain stable, at ~17% and ~83% respectively.

Similarly to the Iberian peninsula and Sicily, and in contrast to central-northern Europe, no significant amount of genes attributable to migrations from the Pontic-Caspian steppe have been identified in Sardinian Beaker individuals.

[21][22] A 2022 study by Manjusha Chintalapati, Nick Patterson, and Priya Moorjania detected instead an early, modest gene flow from the Western Steppe Herders around 2600 BC.