Rewriting History: Malta’s Earliest Human Presence Traced Back 1,000 Years Earlier In New Discovery
Malta’s human history may go back much further than we thought.
A groundbreaking study published in Nature has revealed that humans were living in Malta at least 8,500 years ago, a full millennium before the first farmers arrived.
The discovery overturns decades of archaeological consensus that Malta was uninhabited before the Neolithic period.
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These early inhabitants managed to cross at least 100km of open sea, likely from Sicily, using dugout canoes and early navigation techniques that included star-mapping and reading sea currents.
The findings also suggest that Malta’s first farmers encountered a landscape already altered by earlier humans and possibly still home to now-extinct species like foxes and endemic red deer.
The discovery adds Malta to a wider web of prehistoric Mediterranean migration and trade routes and may help explain the movement of ancient populations, as well as the early collapse of island ecosystems across the region.
“Our discovery connects Malta with a much deeper human prehistory,” added Prof. Scerri, “it roots Malta to the story of humanity itself.”
The research was funded by the European Research Council, and a Research Excellence Award from the University of Malta.
Images via: Daniel Clarke, Huw Groucutt and Eleonor Scerri
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