Sardinia: An Ancient Land

The island dates back to the Cambrian period, 570 million years ago. With the periodic fluctuation of sea level, Sardinia has at times been linked physically to the rest of Italy, and people and animals crossed the land bridge to and from Tuscany.

The scant population that lived in Sardinia from around AD1800 to 200BCE built the strange conical towers that are still a characteristic feature of the landscape. This population was mainly a pastoral people and their basic traditions of farming have been maintained in Sardinia for over 3,000 years, right up to the present day. It is still common to see peasant farmers travelling around by donkey and, up to just a few years ago, you could occasionally witness the tilling of the land with an ox-drawn wooden plough.