The museum was founded in 1878, thanks to donations by the director of Montevecchio's mine, after whom it is named. It was reorganised as of the 1930s, when new collections were brought in. The seven rooms making up the archaeology section give amateurs a good insight into the evolution of human presence on the island from the Lower Palaeolithic Era (450 000 BC) to the Middle Ages. You will see Sardinian crafts (ethnography section) and pieces from the former art gallery, now housed at MUS'A.