The Mediterranean_Neolithic assemblage evokes a coastline remade by the first farmers. Archaeological data indicates early Cardial-style colonisation and related Stentinello traditions moving along the coasts of Italy and across to islands such as Sardinia and Sicily between the early 7th and mid-3rd millennia BCE. Sites represented in the dataset include Anghelu Ruju and Sa Ucca de su Tintirriolu (Sardinia), Fossato di Stretto Partana (Sicily), Ripabianca di Monterado (Marche), Zemunica Cave (Croatia) and Europa 1 (Gibraltar). Radiocarbon-supported dates in this sample set range from 6068 to 2786 BCE, reflecting both early arrivals and later island communities.
Material culture—impressed and cardial-decorated ceramics, coastal shell middens, and simple polished stone tools—speaks to a maritime pulse to expansion. Limited evidence suggests some coastal sites functioned as seasonal aggregation points where exchange and marriage networks formed. Archaeology indicates the Neolithic arrival brought new subsistence: cereal cultivation, caprine herding and structured habitation, layered atop or alongside persistent foraging traditions.
Uncertainty remains about precise migration routes: maritime leaps from the western Mediterranean versus stepwise coastal diffusion are both plausible. Genetic data (see next section) help distinguish demic movement from cultural transmission, but in some locations sample sizes remain modest and conclusions preliminary.
