Sardinian megalithic and rock-cut tombs in the context of the prehistoric western Mediterranean

The earliest megalithic monuments in the Western Mediterranean appear during the 5th millennium cal BC, with particularly significant manifestations in Corsica and Sardinia, in the form of coffres burials enclosed by stone circles and associated with small standing stones. The similarity between the Sardinian and Corsican monuments and those of Catalonia and the French Midi are evidence of the dissemination of the proto-megalithic tomb model along the circulation routes of Sardinian obsidian. In Sardinia this cultural phenomenon evolves and acquires distinctive attributes during the course of the Neolithic and the Copper Age. This paper will examine those monuments with mixed characteristics, specifically, rock-cut tombs with megalithic elements. Particular attention will be given to comparisons with Sicily; as is well known, Tusa and other authors have, for some time, drawn attention to some similarities between these monuments in the two islands and their possible relationships with the Bell Beaker phenomenon.