Neolithic Sardinians (4442–3050 BCE)

Sardinia's Neolithic horizon unfolds like a shoreline lit by new practices: domesticated cereals and herds arrive by sea, and people anchor themselves in caves and rock-cut tombs. Archaeological data from sites such as Sa Ucca de su Tintirriolu, Anghelu Ruju (a large necropolis near Alghero), Su Crocefissu, Grutta I de Longu Fresu (Seulo), and the funerary contexts at Porto Torres (Su Crucifissu Mannu t.22) document occupation and ritual between roughly 4442 and 3050 BCE.

Material culture — impressed and decorated ceramics, polished stone tools, and curated grave assemblages — suggests links with broader Cardial/Impressed Ware traditions across the western Mediterranean, though Sardinia also develops local forms. Limited evidence suggests early seafaring and exchange networks brought farmers with Anatolian-derived ancestries to the island; archaeological contexts imply these arrivals integrated with resident coastal foragers rather than replacing them outright.

Genetic data from 16 individuals provide a time-stamped glimpse of this process: Y-lineages dominated by haplogroup G align with continental Neolithic farmer signals, while the presence of haplogroup I points to enduring hunter-gatherer male ancestry. Radiocarbon dates from skeletal remains anchor these biological signals to the island's cave burials and necropolises. While the picture is increasingly coherent, archaeological and genetic gaps remain — coastal settlements are under-sampled and many burial contexts are disturbed — so interpretations should be treated as evolving.

Genetic data from 16 Neolithic Sardinian individuals provide a window into the island's biological formation. Y-chromosome haplogroup counts in this sample are dominated by G (4 individuals), followed by I (3), with single occurrences of H and R. On the maternal side, mitochondrial lineages include J (3), U (3), K (3), V (1), and an R-a lineage (1).

The prominence of Y haplogroup G is consistent with patterns observed among early European farmers, who carried Anatolian-derived ancestry into the Mediterranean. Maternal lineages J and K likewise often signal Near Eastern farmer contributions. The presence of haplogroup I and U-bearing mtDNA points to a persisting hunter-gatherer substrate on the island — a genetic echo of pre-Neolithic inhabitants integrated into farming communities.

Together, the autosomal and uniparental markers suggest admixture: incoming farmer groups brought new genes and practices, while local forager ancestry remained detectable in both male and female lines. Because sample size is modest (16 individuals), some haplogroups are represented by low counts; rare lineages such as H and R appear only once and should be treated cautiously. Spatially, the sampled individuals span cave burials and necropoleis (Anghelu Ruju, Su Crucifissu Mannu, Grutta I de Longu Fresu, Sa Ucca de su Tintirriolu), allowing correlation of genetic signals with funerary contexts, but additional coastal settlements and unsampled regions may alter the pattern as more data emerge.