History of Sardinia strongholds on strategic points in the south and west of Sardinia, often peninsulas or islands near estuaries, easy to defend and natural harbours, such as Tharros, Bithia, Sulci, Nora and Caralis (Cagliari). The majority of the inhabitants in these cities were of indigenous nuragic stock while the Phoenician element was, although culturally predominant, in minority. The Phoenicians came originally from what is now Lebanon and founded a vast trading network in the Mediterranean. Sardinia had a special position because it was central in the Western Mediterranean between Carthage, Spain, the river Rhône and the Etruscan civilization area. The mining area
History of Sardinia the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1324. The Kingdom was to last until 1718, when it was ceded to the Piedmontese House of Savoy; later, in 1861, it would thus become the Kingdom of Italy and finally in 1946 the Italian Republic. The oldest trace in Sardinia of the anthropomorphic prehistoric primate called "Oreopithecus bambolii" is dated to 8.5 million years ago. In 1996 a hominid finger bone, dated up to 250.000 BC, was found in a cave in the Logudoro region. Modern humans appeared in the island during the Upper Paleolithic, a phalanx dated to 18000 BC had been found