ABSTRACT
The highland/lowland distinction, with its attendant sociocultural correlates, is a defining motif of social and political processes within the Mediterranean region. On the basis of powerful stereotypes, classical Mediterranean thought relegated these latter to a primeval state, fundamentally representing a form of life that is antonymous with civilization, namely, with life under political domination. Tribal populations of the central highlands appear to have maintained de facto autonomy and resisted the Roman expeditionary campaigns. Sardinias difficultly accessible mountains offered sanctuary, from the Carthaginian period onward, to fugitive populations escaping the orbit of powerful political formations on the lowlands. The mountainous central districts of Sardinia are endowed with characteristic social-structural features borne by a difficult history and constitute an historic region of refuge, as well as what Kenneth Olwig. With the Roman military conquest of 238 BCE, Sardinia experienced an intensification of external control as well as an increased dispersal of its indigenous population away from the coastal areas and fertile lowlands.
