Sardinia: Late Bronze Age Echoes

The Late Bronze Age in Sardinia unfolds like a weathered coastal panorama: inland stone towers (nuraghi), small settlements and coastal ports that threaded the island into Mediterranean exchange networks. Archaeological data indicates activity across both interior and littoral contexts between ca. 1500 and 800 BCE; the genomic samples here date specifically to 1386–800 BCE. Sites represented by the seven individuals include Alghero (northwest coast), Perdasdefogu and Persasdefogu (Ogliastra area), and Anulù Seui (inland mountainous terrain).

Material culture — pottery styles, funerary practices and the monumental nuraghi — shows continuity with earlier Bronze Age traditions while also registering new influences from maritime contacts. Limited evidence suggests increased interaction with central Mediterranean and Aegean spheres during the Late Bronze Age, but the intensity and directionality of those connections remain debated.

Genetic data from these individuals offers a tentative glimpse into the island's population composition at a time of cultural dynamism. Because the sample count is small (n=7), any reconstruction of demographic origins must be framed as preliminary: the genetic picture complements the archaeology but does not yet provide a definitive narrative of population change or migration across Sardinia in this era.

The seven Late Bronze Age Sardinian genomes reveal a mosaic of paternal and maternal lineages that mirror Sardinia's complex prehistory. Y-chromosome markers among male individuals are G (2), J (1) and R (1). Haplogroup G is often associated with Neolithic farmer expansions in Europe and the Mediterranean; J can reflect connections to Anatolia and the Near East or later maritime links; the single R lineage is ambiguous without subclade resolution and should not be overinterpreted as definitively Steppe-associated.

Mitochondrial DNA is dominated by haplogroups J (3) and T (2), with single instances of V and HV. Maternal haplogroups J and T frequently appear in Neolithic and post-Neolithic Mediterranean contexts and may indicate continuity of maternal lines established during earlier agricultural expansions; V and HV are present in broader European maternal diversity.

Importantly, the small sample size (n=7) constrains statistical power: observed frequencies could shift with additional sampling. Archaeogenetic signals align with archaeological evidence of local continuity alongside intermittent external influence, suggesting a population anchored in Sardinian traditions but connected through maritime networks. Future analyses with larger samples and high-resolution Y-subclade data will be needed to clarify migration timing and sex-biased gene flow patterns.