Central North Africa and Sardinian Connections (end of 9th-8th century BC). The multi-ethnic and multicultural facies of the earliest western Phoenician communities

This work constitutes a reflection on the oldest documentary horizons of
the Phoenician presence in central-western Mediterranean, with specific reference to
Sardinia, Tunisian North Africa and the relationships between the different regions affected
by the spread of Phoenician culture between the 9th and 8th centuries BC. The
analysis of domestic contexts and the material evidence that characterizes some of
the most ancient phases documented allow us to affirm that spaces of relationship
of daily life represented a favourable scenario of dynamics of encounter between the
Phoenicians and the different native realities in direct contact with them. In the case of
Sardinia (Sulky) and North Africa (Utica, Carthage, Althiburos), but also in the western
Mediterranean and Atlantic regions of Andalusia (Huelva, Cádiz, Málaga), the archaeological
record reflects a composite, multi-ethnic and multicultural reality that appears
to be the result of the complex phenomena of the ‘interweaving’ of the economicpolitical
interests and social solutions adopted in the new communities of the Iron
Age, which are at the same time heirs of Bronze Age cultural traditions and forerunners
of the subsequent political-territorial structuring during the Archaic age.