The Monte Claro culture was a
Chalcolithic
The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...
culture that spread throughout the island of
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
around the second half of the 3rd millennium BC (2400-2100 BC). It takes its name from a hill located in the city of
Cagliari
Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitant ...
, where important discoveries were made.
Archaeologists divide the Monte Claro culture into four
facies
In geology, a facies ( , ; same pronunciation and spelling in the plural) is a body of rock with specified characteristics, which can be any observable attribute of rocks (such as their overall appearance, composition, or condition of formatio ...
: Sassari, Nuoro, Campidano Oristanese. Within each facies there are recognizable peculiarities that concern not only the material culture (ceramics, metallurgy and so on) but also the religious sphere and the settlement patterns. Characteristics of southern Sardinia are a variety of tombs types, including "oven-tombs", while in northern Sardinia appeared for the first time large
megalithic
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
defensive walls, one of which is that of Monte Baranta near
Olmedo.
Its spread appears to have occurred through a slow expansion, which started from the South to the North of the island.
[Foschi Nieddu, Alba (2000) I Nuovi dati sull'Eneolitico sardo dagli scavi 1993 nella necropoli di Filigosa-Macomer (NU). In: L'ipogeismo nel Mediterraneo: origini, sviluppo, quadri culturali: atti del Congresso internazionale, 23-28 maggio 1994, Sassari-Oristano, Italia. Sassari, Università degli studi di Sassari, Facoltà di Lettere e filosofia, Istituto di Antichità, arte e discipline etnodemologiche e Dipartimento di Scienze umanistiche e dell'antichità. V. 2, p. 803-818: ill. Contributo in congresso.]
The settlements were often made up of houses with a rectangular or trapezoidal plant, which sometimes comprised different rooms. There is evidence of urban planning in some of the settlements
[{{Cite web, url=http://www.quaderniarcheocaor.beniculturali.it/index.php/quaderni/article/view/225/127, title = Entra]
See also
*
Pre-Nuragic Sardinia
The Pre-Nuragic period refers to the prehistory of Sardinia from the Paleolithic until the middle Bronze Age, when the Nuragic civilization flourished on the island.
Paleolithic
The discovery of Paleolithic lithic workshops indicate a human pre ...
*
Chalcolithic Europe
The European Chalcolithic, the Chalcolithic (also Eneolithic, Copper Age) period of Prehistoric Europe, lasted roughly from 5000 to 2000 BC, developing from the preceding Neolithic period.
It was a period of Megalithic culture, the appearance o ...
Notes
Chalcolithic cultures of Europe
Archaeological cultures of Southern Europe
Archaeological cultures in Sardinia