Neolithisation in the Western Mediterranean Islands

The islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily played a central role both geographically and economically in the neolithisation of the western Mediterranean. New chronological and other data concerning the Mesolithic settlement of Sardinia and Corsica, the early use of ceramics, the exploitation of obsidian and greenstone, and the appearance of domesticated plants and animals suggest that the neolithisation process was neither spatially nor temporally uniform and that a generic "neolithic package" derived from the Near East was not simply "adopted." A more complex explanatory model based on indigenous adaptations and developments is proposed for this important transition in Mediterranean prehistory.