Sant'Imbenia (Alghero SS): il contributo dell'archeometria nella ricostruzione della storia e delle attività dell'abitato nuragico

This thesis focuses on the archaeometric study of pottery from the Nuragic village of Sant'Imbenia. The village is situated in the northwestern part of Sardinia (Alghero, SS), and was inhabited from approximately the XIV to VII century BC. With current knowledge, it is possible to say that during the last period of life, settled in the village foreign people who lived peacefully with the natives and with whom exchanged, as well as goods and raw materials, but also ideas, knowledge and technologies. The scope of work is precisely to identify these contacts through the study of ceramic technology. The ceramic materials are of different origin: Sant'Imbenia, and the area of Porto Conte, the area of Phoenician and Greek colonization, and have dates between the end of the ninth and seventh centuries BC. Were realized a series of laboratory analysis, stereo microscope, image analysis, thin sections, XRD, XRF, SEM, to identify possible technological developments in the ceramic in the age of transition from Late Bronze Age and Iron Age. We have also studied three clays from the vicinity of the site, with the aim of identifying possible areas of supply of raw materials. Finally, were characterized by a mineralogical point of view of non-native specimens of pottery, to rebuild the contacts and trade routes in the Mediterranean between the IX and VII centuries BC.