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.