Neolithic Italy refer to the period that spanned from circa 6000 BCE, when
Neolithic influences from the east reached the
Italian peninsula and the surrounding island bringing the
Neolithic Revolution, to circa 3500-3000 BCE, when
metallurgy began to spread.[1]
In the
Western Mediterranean region the first wave of neolithization came by
sea, with the spread of the
Cardium pottery (or Impressed Ware), decorated with impressions mainly obtained through the shell of the genus Cardium (hence the nickname cardial ceramic), on all the coasts of Western Mediterranean, from
Liguria, to
southern France and
Spain.
Central Europe was instead hit by another, related but different, wave that went up the
Danube, bringing the
Linear Pottery (Linienbandkeramik). The meeting between the farmers and the European
Mesolithic communities produced many regional variations of the two main strands of Impressed pottery and Linear Pottery.
In
Southern Italy the impressed pottery Neolithic culture spread, between the second half of the sixth millennium BC and the beginning of V, especially in the
Tavoliere delle Puglie,
Irpinia and
Basilicata, from where it spread to the north and the interior and the
Tyrrhenian coast. In
Sicily there was more continuity with the local Mesolithic communities. The island of
Lipari was colonized at the beginning of the fifth millennium BC by people coming from Sicily for the exploitation of its deposits of
obsidian.
In
Central Italy the presence of the
Apennines caused the formation of different regional horizons on the Tyrrhenian side and on the Adriatic one, with different cultural facies that succeeded each other with some overlaps. In
Sardinia, the exploitation of the obsidian deposits of the
Monte Arci led to the early development of the Neolithic cultures, introduced with the culture of the impressed pottery in the early sixth millennium BC.
In
Northern Italy a variant of the Impressed Ware, established himself on the
Ligurian coast in the first half of the sixth millennium BC. While in the process of neolithization of
Northwest Italy occurs through influences of the Ligurian Impressed Ware, in
Romagna the facies of the Adriatic Impressed Ceramic spread around the middle of the fifth millennium BC thanks to the contribution of the connected groups of the
Abruzzo-
Marche Impressed Ware.[2] At the end of the millennium the area of the
Po Valley was subdivided by a mosaic of cultures united by the ceramic decoration. At the beginning of the fifth millennium BC the former cultural mosaic was replaced by the culture of the square mouthed vases, widespread from Liguria to
Veneto.
From the middle of the sixth millennium BC the Neolithic groups in Italy began a wider exploitation of local resources: they developed the domestication of wild species, such as
cattle and
pigs, with a "mixed" economy between agriculture (attested by the presence of
mills,
grinders and
sickles) and
livestock in predominantly permanent settlements.[3] However
hunting,
fishing and
shellfishing were still important activities.
Late in the last phase of the Neolithic period in
Sardinia and
Val d'Aosta appeared new religious ideologies related to the introduction of
megalithism from the west.