The Towers and the "Cyclopean" Stone World of the Western Mediterranean Islands in the Bronze Age

Some Western Mediterranean islands, such as Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Islands, appear to have experienced parallel rather than interconnected developments since the Middle Bronze Age. Each of these regions exhibits distinctive characteristics in their stone monumental structures, emerging from an apparent overall homogeneity often attributed to a common origin of the phenomenon.

This lecture aims to provide an overview of these developments, illustrating the main local identities while highlighting similarities, differences, and interactions within the Mediterranean island world.

This event is in collaboration with the Accordia Research Institute

Speaker details:

Anna Depalmas is full professor of Prehistory and Protohistory at the University of Sassari. She specializes in archaeology and holds a PhD in prehistoric archaeology from the University of Rome La Sapienza. She is the deputy director of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Her research mainly focuses on the Bronze and Iron Ages of Sardinia, territorial organization, settlement developments, and the social structure of protohistoric communities. She also studies navigation and transmarine trade in the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age, protohistoric metallurgical productions and technologies.

She has directed numerous research and excavation campaigns in Sardinia as well as abroad, particularly in Tunisia and Menorca, within archaeological and ethnoarchaeological projects.

She was the coordinator and is a member of the Scientific Committee of the project Sardinia towards UNESCO aimed at the inscription of the Nuragic heritage in the WHL. She is also a member of the Scientific Committee of Art and Architecture in the Prehistory of Sardinia. The domus de janas for the inscription of the monuments of Sardinian prehistory in the WHL.

She is President of the SAIC - Italian Archaeological School of Carthage.

She has published over 240 scientific articles and four monographic works, including Le navicelle di bronzo della Sardegna nuragica (2005) and Le donne della Sardegna prima della storia (2021).