Tumuli and Peristaliths in Prehistoric Sardinia (Italy)

On the island of Sardinia, in the western Mediterranean, the megalithic phenomenon has been documented at least since the Middle Neolithic Age (5th millennium BC), reaching its peak during the Late Neolithic and the Copper Age (first centuries of the 4th to the end of the 3rd millennium BC) and further developing until the Bronze Age. Indeed, Sardinia excels in terms of displaying quite a lot of megalithic monuments: at present, we know of about 750 menhirs, 100 statue-menhirs, twenty megalithic circles and at least 255 dolmenic burials. The dolmenic tombs are particularly interesting: even though the size of the Sardinian dolmens is generally not so great, they are highly visible in the landscape. While across the European continent many dolmens are still covered by a mound of earth and stones, in Sardinia only a few dolmens have traces of a clear structure of the tumulus. It is not known with certainty whether the Sardinian dolmens were deprived of such protection – in contrast to similar monuments in other countries – or whether this is due to the action of nature as well as the destructive work of man, besides the fact that other dolmenic buildings with a mound may still be hidden under the earth. However, there is indirect evidence of the presence of a mound in many Sardinian dolmens: the presence around such dolmens of a “peristalith” – a stone ring that surrounded the dolmenic structure at a, intended to consolidate the periphery of a possible mound. However, a symbolic-sacral value was also proposed for them, as they may have had the function to delimit – as an element of enclosure – the Chapter Seven grave and then separate the sacred world of the dead from the word of the living. In this case, the peristalith should be considered as an “element of worship”.