The Arzachena culture was a pre-Nuragic culture of the

Late Neolithic In the archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the Chalcolithic. It is some ...

Age occupying

Gallura Gallura ( sdn, Gaddura or ; sc, Caddura ) is a region in North-Eastern Sardinia, Italy. The name ''Gallùra'' is allegedly supposed to mean "stony area". Geography Gallùra has a surface of and it is situated between 40°55'20"64 latitude ...

(the northeastern part 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 ...

) and part of southern Corsica from approximately the 4th to the 3rd millennium BC. It takes its name from the Sardinian town of Arzachena. Arzachena culture is best known for its megalithic structures, such as the characteristic "circular graves" and

menhir A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be found ...

s. Both the funerary architecture and the material culture show similarities with contemporary cultures in

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...

Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...

Provence Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...

and Corsica. In contrast to the people of the contemporary Ozieri culture in the rest of Sardinia, the people of the Arzachena culture were organized in an

aristocratic Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At the time of the word' ...

and individualistic society focused on

pastoralism Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as " livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The a ...

rather than

arable farming Arable land (from the la, wikt:arabilis#Latin, arabilis, "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Al ...

.Giovanni Lilliu, La società in Sardegna nei secoli, Prima dei nuraghi, p.13 The Arzachena aristocracy buried their dead in megalithic monuments in the shape of a circle, with a central chamber containing a single individual,Giovanni Lilliu, La società in Sardegna nei secoli, Prima dei nuraghi, p. 11 while on the rest of the island the Ozieri people buried their dead in collective

hypogeum A hypogeum or hypogaeum (plural hypogea or hypogaea, pronounced ; literally meaning "underground", from Greek ''hypo'' (under) and ''ghê'' (earth)) is an underground temple or tomb. Hypogea will often contain niches for cremated human rem ...

tombs called Domus de Janas.

Notes

Bibliography

*AA.VV. La civiltà in Sardegna nei secoli - Torino - Edizioni ERI. 4th-millennium BC establishments 3rd-millennium BC disestablishments Neolithic cultures of Europe Archaeological cultures of Southern Europe Archaeological cultures in Sardinia Archaeological cultures in France Archaeology of Corsica Neolithic France Neolithic Italy Late Neolithic {{Italy-archaeology-stub

See also

Notes

Bibliography