High Place in Sardinia  (3200 BC)

(July 9, 2022) This sacred site was built prior as Stonehenge and it is the cultural connection between Mesopotamia and the Etruscan lands of northern Italy and the Atlantic coast Europe. This built near the same time as the earliest pyramids in Mesopotamia and Egypt. This site is part of the island's Ozieri culture and it has close cultural similarities to the Neolithic culture of Ireland and Britain.

This platform has a base of 27 m by 27 m and it probably reached a height of 5.5 m. It culminated in a platform of about 12.5 m by 7.2 m, accessible via a ramp. No chambers or entrances to the mound have been found, leading to the presumption it was an altar, a temple or a step pyramid.

Archaeological excavations have identified some 200 Ozieri sites, located both in plain and mountain areas, but with a preference for low ridges, and largely organized around an economy of Hunter-gatherers mixed with an initial presence of husbandry and agriculture. The settlements consisted of small stone huts, with a circular (rarely rectangular) wall supporting a wooden frame with a ceiling of boughs. 

One settlement near Sestu, consisted of 60 huts. Another, near Mogoro included 267 huts with pavements composed of limestone slabs, basalt cobbles or clay. Su Coddu, the largest known settlement, consisted of more complex structures and multiple room dwellings. It is located near Selargius and it has been partially built over by modern development limiting the present understanding of its size. The finding of unique tools and objects in individual huts, and early evidence of metal-working, suggests the Ozieri culture was well organized and specialized.

The villages had no walls, and findings of weapons in the tombs are scarce, indicating the Ozieri civilization was perhaps a peaceful one, very different from the later Nuragic civilization.

 The tombs consisted of rock-cut hypogeous structures that later became known as domus de janas, which were built underground or in rock faces, with the largest example being the Necropolis of Anghelu Ruju. Some tombs, of more monumental appearance, belonged perhaps to chiefs, in the fashion of those in Crete. The Ozieri burial practices differ from what is found in the region of Gallura (as a feature of the contemporaneous Arzachena culture), where the dead were interred in Megalithic circles. 

The pottery was decorated in spiral similar to that found at Newgrange, Ireland. Their pottery techniques seem to have been imported from the Cyclades and Crete. The Ozieri culture appears to have been much involved in the obsidian trade due to rich deposits on the island.  

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