From the Corbeddu Cave (Oliena-Nuoro) come the most ancient fossil human remains found in Sardinia (10.000-8000 BC).

Flints found in the Province of Sassari would seem to date human presence in Sardinia round 150,000-100,000 years ago, when the slender natural bridge linking Sardinia, Corsica and Tuscany brought the island’s earliest inhabitants from the coasts of Italy. This "bridge", fruit of the last two Ice Ages (lowering of the sea level was about 300 m), could still be negotiated around 7000 BC.

In southern Sardinia the first widespread human settlements can be dated round 6000 BC (caves of Su Carroppu, Carbonia; Sant'Elia, Cagliari, Coróngiu Acca, Villamassargia).

The area was attractive due to its mild climate and abundant shellfish and wildlife, but the great attraction for the Neolithic tribes was the rare volcanic stone of Monte Arci (Oristano): obsidian [n].

These proto-Sardinians where of Afro-Mediterranean race, a stock which in early Neolithic times was also widespread in north western Africa, Corsica and the Iberian-French-Ligurian region. These peoples lived and buried their dead in cave-shelters: their remains include small obsidian objects, pestles, small grindstones and cereal grains. The simple daily use objects were made by the women: bowls, cups and dishes, usually of rough make but at times coloured bright red.

Around 7000 BC cardial pottery - that is decorated with impressions of seashells - appeared in Sardinia. This type of decoration, at the time widespread in the Mediterranean, was to be popular for thousands of years. From this period dates "the first known figurative sign in Sardinian prehistory ...in which craftwork verges on art" (G. Lilliu): this is a reference to a human face marked on one of the jugs found in the Grotta Verde (green cave) of Alghero - Sassari.

In the Bonu Ighinu period, although caves continued to be used for habitation and as graves, the development of farming led to the creation of the first hut villages and favoured settlement in the Campidano plain.

We find the first rock-cut tombs, locally known as domus de janas [i] (witches’ houses) and the first statuettes of the Mother Goddess [i], while there still were no metal objects. Amongst findings were also 10 ankle bracelets in Sardinian nephrite, which was believed to have healing properties (found in the provinces of Sassari and Nuoro).

The pottery of these communities was carefully fired and polished: globular vases, angular bowls with simple decorations consisting of dot patterns in the shape of circles, triangles, stars or the sun.

From the cave of sa Ucca de Tintirriólu (locality Bonu Ighinu - Sassari) also came a startling fragment of a vase, marked with a small round face, identical to today’s “smiley”

In Sardinia some 140 sites belonging to the Ozieri culture have been found, with the greatest concentration in the south west of the island. The villages consisted of wooden huts, numbering more than 100 in the largest settlements of southern Sardinia: Sestu, S.Gilla-Cagliari, Monastir, Selargius, Villaperuccio, and Serramanna.

These people used the plough and developed social organization. Thanks to obsidian [n] they engaged in trade with the Mediterranean and central European communities; this fostered emergence of a class of artisans who created megalithic monuments and fine statuettes of the Mother Goddess [i]. The first, rare metal objects began to appear (copper punches and grains, a perforated silver disc, pieces of lead).

These early Sardinians (whose culture takes its name from the cave of S. Michele, Ozieri-Sassari) had great inventiveness and artistic sensitivity. Their pottery was richly decorated (festoons, spirals, geometric designs, dancing figures) and also included a new shape: the tripod vase, unknown among the Italic peoples of the same period, which could be placed directly on the cinders.

Other findings of this period are knives and arrow heads in flint and obsidian, shell necklaces, bone needles and stone axes of all sizes, from large implements for cutting down trees to the tiny axes (4 cm), used as a good luck charms to be hung round the neck.

The intense spirituality of these proto-Sardinians comes down to us intact from their monuments: "domus de janas" tombs, circular tombs, menhirs [i] and dolmens [n]. These early inhabitants of Sardinia produced exceptional necropolis-sanctuaries, even more fascinating because they are still surrounded by the primeval landscape in which they stood 5000 years ago. In southern Sardinia: Montessu (Villaperuccio) and Pranu Mutteddu (Goni).

While the Abealzu and Filigosa cultures [n] (established in central-northern Sardinia) opened this age it was the almost contemporary Monte Claro culture (which takes its name from a locality in Cagliari) that led the transition of the proto-Sardinians from stone to metals, absorbing, around 2000 BC, the influence of the bell beaker culture from the mainland [n]. The cultures of Abealzu-Filigosa and Monte Claro formed the substrate that originated Nuragic civilisation.

About 90% of the settlements consisted of stone and wooden huts, surrounded by pastureland and cultivated fields. This was the period of the first stone houses divided into rooms (Monte Baranta, Olmedo -Sassari) and the first defensive structures: the proto-nuraghi [i] and massive curtain walls, up to 3 m thick (Saurecci, Guspini).

From these findings we perceive a more warlike and enterprising atmosphere when compared with the preceding millennium: many arrow heads and copper daggers; pottery and lead clamps to repair it; striking necklaces made of shells, animal and human teeth and stone beads; copper bracelets and rings. A particularly interesting finding are about 15 armbands (the brassard of the bell beaker culture) used to protect the archers’ forearm, in polished stone plates and copper nails.

The Monte Claro culture was innovative in building, in its pottery shapes, in its working – albeit of small quantities – of copper and lead, melted down in terracotta or stone crucibles (as were in stone or obsidian the grindstones, pestles and axes). Production of terracotta items was the main activity of these peoples, some of whose tall, flat-bottomed vases have come down to us.

The fanciful decorations of the preceding millennium have disappeared and the religious sense too of the Monte Claro peoples is detached and far different from the all-pervasive spirituality of the previous periods.