Sardinia's history is very ancient and proof of this is that, in 1979, human remains were found that were dated to 150,000 BC.

From Neolithic times until the Roman Empire, the Nuragic civilisation evolved on the island. The Nuraghe are to be found scattered all over the island: gigantic graves and sacred wells, dating from 1800 to 500BC. The Nuraghe were simultaneously dwellings and fortifications, and there are more than 700 such stone remains on Sardinia. In pictures, or seen from a distance, they often seem unspectacular. However, close up or from the inside they are quite fascinating. The stones are piled loosely on one another though some of these towers are, or were, several storeys high. The Nuraghe, or the villages which now surround them, often form fascinating geometric patterns when viewed from the air.

Around 1000 BC Phoenician mariners established several ports of trade on the Sardinian coast. In 509 BC, war broke out between the native Nuragic people and the Phoenician settlers. The settlers called for help from Carthage, and the island became a province in the Carthaginian Empire. In 238 BC, after being defeated by the Roman Republic during the First Punic War, Carthage ceded Sardinia to Rome.

In the eighth century, Arabs and Berbers began raiding Sardinia. Especially after the conquering of Sicily in 832. The Byzantines were unable to effectively defend their most distant province, and the provincial judge assumed independent authority.

There has been much Catalan and Spanish influence over the centuries and Sardinians were regularly employed in the royal Spanish fleet.

In 1720 Sardinia became an independent kingdom under the House of Savoy, rulers of Piedmont. Then in 1792, Jean-Paul Marat, son of a Sardinian father and a Swiss mother, was one of the triumvirate leading the French Revolution. Later in 1860, Vittorio Emanuele II, King of Sardinia became also the first King of Italy after conquering the rest of the peninsula.


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