The first Sardinians
Clactonian pebbles as well as incomplete skeletons make the first human traces go back to the Upper Paleolithic (-45,000 to -11,700 years), which makes Sardinia one of the last regions of Europe to be populated. Its distance from the coasts and the need to possess a solid ship could explain this late settlement. The first colonizers probably arrived from near geographical zones, as the Italian and Iberian peninsulas. The first funerary circles and megalithic structures distinctive of the Arzachena culture (4,200 to 3,800 years ago) are thought to have come from peoples in southern France. The female bone statuettes from the Ozieri culture (-3,300 to -2,500 years old) echo Cretan and Cycladic practices. The terracotta jars of the Campaniform culture and the new metalworking methods of the Copper Age (2500 to 1800 years ago) are thought to have come from Franco-Iberian and Central European peoples. They are only some tribes that disembark each time, bringing with them new know-how that gives place to social developments: villages, roads, military development, cult of the dead... The Nuraghic civilization (-1 800 to -238 years), real golden age of Sardinia, sees arriving tribes in bigger number. The island is organized around clearly identified ethnic groups, but with sometimes controversial origins. The Corsi crossed the Mouths of Bonifacio to settle at the northern point of the island. The Balari, who came from the Iberian Peninsula and the South of France, occupy a territory that extends to Bosa and Orosei. The Ilienses, also called Ioleïs, put down their weapons and their tools in the big southern half of Sardinia. Between myths, legends and scientific research, the sources telescope, but agree to make come this ethnic group of Greece. On the other hand, is it about Trojans fleeing the conflict, about Beotians following their hero Iolaos, about people coming from Aegean a long time ago? The mystery remains... During this constitutive period of the Sardinian culture, the island develops. The exchanges provoked by the Phoenician and Carthaginian incursions were to leave cultural and cultic traces, as well as a taste for war. Punic inscriptions appear on steles. And the inhabitants of the coasts withdrew towards the interior of the lands to flee the Carthaginian attempts. In 238 BC, the Romans took over the island. Goodbye Africans, hello Europeans. Rome sent thousands of inhabitants, some slaves and exiles to colonize the island. Then followed the Arab invasion, the Pisan and Genoese influence on the Judicats, the Spanish domination, the return to the bosom of Piedmont-Savoy, the mining that brought its share of immigrants, the misery that the Sicilians fled... Difficult to determine the origin of the Sardinian in this incessant coming and going of the History, which never seems to leave Sardinia in peace.
The contribution of genetics
The boom in genetics in the 1990s and the completion of the human genome sequencing in 2003 are allowing great advances in the understanding of the origins of the Sardinians. Research is being undertaken to determine the genetic heritage of the early Sardinians as well as contemporary Sardinians. The most recent study conducted by the University of Chicago and published in the journal Nature Communications in 2020 shows that the Middle Neolithic Sardinians share a genetic heritage similar to that of Europeans of the same period. The study of DNA taken from 70 ancient skeletons also shows that genetic evolution remained stable until the end of the Nuraghic period. This means that the influx of population on the island remained very moderate, because during the same period the genetic heritage of the mainlanders diversified due to important exchanges throughout Europe and beyond. From 500 BC onwards, researchers note a contribution from the Phoenicians and Carthaginians in the Sardinian genetic map. The result today is a common gene pool with that of the Europeans, but with isolated variants. Genetics also tells us that Basques and Sardinians are the most similar in DNA, although this cannot be explained by the Spanish contribution in the Middle Ages. Finally, geneticists are looking with great interest at the Sardinian people in order to unravel the mystery of certain autoimmune diseases, but especially the secret of human longevity.
The blue zone of the Nuoro
At the end of the 1990s, Gianni Pes, a doctor in clinical research and experimental medicine, found a region of Sardinia where men seem to live as old as the trees. Somewhere in the mountains of Nuoro, many men and women are over 100 years old and in good physical condition. He shared his discovery at a specialized conference attended by the Belgian geographer Michel Poulain. Both decided to investigate in the field. They took a map and went to count the centenarians as others count sheep at bedtime. They circled in blue the localities where the density of centenarians was particularly high and isolated the region of Punta la Marmora. There are nearly 31 centenarians per 100,000 inhabitants, a record! On a world scale, the figures, although uncertain, project rather 7.13 centenarians per 100 000 inhabitants. Dan Buettner, an explorer and member of the National Geographic Society, learns about the results of the "blue zone" in Nuoro. He suggested to the two researchers to conquer the world and see if there were other blue zones. Since 2002, 4 regions with an abnormally high number of centenarians have been identified: Okinawa in Japan, the island of Ikaria in Greece, the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica and an Adventist community in California. A comparison of these five societies revealed a predominantly vegetarian diet, low alcohol consumption, and a healthy, outdoor lifestyle as commonalities. This lifestyle was undoubtedly that of the Melis family. In 2012, Italian journalists put together 9 siblings in one photo who between them totaled 818 years. With ages ranging from 78 to 104 years, the "oldest family in the world" made it into the Guinness Book of Records.
Demography
Sardinia may be a place where people die of old age, at 83 on average, but it's also a place where few are born. This is the region with the lowest fertility rate in Italy, with only 1.07 children per woman. With 45% of single people in a very Catholic country where marriage remains the norm, repopulation of Sardinia does not seem to be on the agenda. The pen-nib-shaped age pyramid shows a clear population deficit between the ages of 0 and 29. The average age is 47, and 16.66% of the population is between 45 and 54. The island has a negative demographic balance, losing 10,800 inhabitants per year. At the last census in 2011, Sardinia had a population of 1,639,362. A quarter of the population lives in the metropolitan area of Cagliari, Sardinia's capital and largest industrial zone. Island-wide, population density is 68 inhabitants per km², compared with 200.27 inhabitants per km² in Italy. This density falls to 37 inhabitants per km² in the mountainous province of Nuoro. In the 1930s, the majority of the population lived between 500 and 600 meters above sea level, for historical as well as environmental reasons. The marshy plains were infested with malaria, and it wasn't until 1951 that the island was finally rid of this scourge. A few years later, Sardinia's tourism boom completed the exodus from the central regions to the coasts. Mining until the 1940s and then the tourism boom led to a slight migratory flow. Today, foreign residents account for 3.43% of the population, 5 points below the national average. The largest contingent comes from Romania, and only 800 French people live in Sardinia all year round. Immigration has little impact on Sardinian cohesion, particularly language. On the tourism front, however, almost 20% of foreign travelers to the island are French.
Limba Sarda Comuna
Italian was only imported late on the island, in 1760, when Sardinia fell into the hands of the principality of Savoy. However, the language is imposed and it is the one that is taught in schools. It was not until 1997 that Sardinian was recognized as a language in its own right and that its use was transmitted in schools. Teaching Sardinian is problematic because there is no common Sardinian language, but there are regional languages. The two main branches are Campidanesu (Campidanian), spoken in the south, and Logudoresu (Logodurian) used in the center and west of the island. Sardinian is a neo-Latin language of oral tradition that draws on the ancient Roman language. It is spoken by 62% of Sardinians and understood by 97% of them. Despite these good figures, the language is considered in danger of extinction by Unesco. In 2006, Sardinia adopted the Limba Sarda Comuna (LSC) for the writing of its official documents. It is the scriptural form of Sardinian responsible for creating a single standard understood by all. Since then, the LSC is more and more commonly used in press articles or on social networks. Courses are given for free in some cities or on the website of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia. Books are translated into Sardinian and made available online. The creation of a written language should unify the use of the language and ensure its future. But there are also Sardinian dialects that are highly threatened. Tattaressu, spoken in the region of Sassari, is a mixture of Pisan and Corsican; Nugoresu, with Corsican accents near the town of Sartene, is used in Galluria, in the north-east of the island. The linguistic mille-feuille also includes some dialects imported from abroad. A variant of Eastern Catalan is still used by the elders in Alghero. Tabarchino, a descendant of Genoese, sums up the complexity of population movements in the Mediterranean. In the 16th century, the Genoese family of Lomellini obtained the concession to exploit coral on the island of Tabarka in Tunisia. They sent 50 people there. Two centuries later, 156 families emigrated to the island of San Pedro in the southwest of Sardinia, bringing their dialect with them. This one is practiced from now on only in San Pedro and Sant'Antioco. Finally, Venetian is spoken by some families who came from Italy during the Fascism and settled in Fertilia and Arborea.
