Thread by @I_VG

I've been working on another Twitter thread - not because @netflix gives a stuff and the Hancock followers will keep being conspiracy idiots. I'm doing this b.c I care about #archaeology and #Malta. Now @FlintDibble has (independently) got a head start here, tis good. Go read.

https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1592517900220633089

Good. Now let's focus specifically on #Malta and #prehistory. Let's start with a location map because it's relevant - note we're at the southernmost tip of Europe and pretty much on the doorstep of North Africa. When we say Malta, we mean the entire archipelago.

Malta is the bigger island, the middle one is Comino and above that we have Gozo. And other bits and pieces all around. But I'll focus on Malta and Gozo - or Għawdex to give it the proper name.

Now, we have an abundance of historical & archaeological remains, but my field is prehistory - specifically the #Neolithic. So let's talk a bit about the "stone age" since Neolithic simply means new stone. Many of you will have been taught a linear view of time..

Palaeolithic (old stone), followed by Neolithic and then Bronze and Iron Ages... there's a long story behind this. Let's just say it made sense at the time when people were first discovering stuff. In reality, it's much more complex and yeah every archaeologist knows this.

Shockingly we're not stupid, we actually know stuff. I KNOW. Anyway, it's used as shorthand b.c it's convenient and b.c that's how language works (don't yell at me linguists, I know this is simplified). But it's not as if one day folks woke up and said...

"Oh aye today is the NEW STONE AGE". That's not how life works. That's not how anything works. So while the Neolithic is often associated with settled societies, there was no linear progress. We're not robots or video game characters following a set path...

So we didn't suddenly and magically become farmers. Neither did we suddenly settle into big houses. Monuments did not appear out of nowhere. I just don't get people who ignore the time factor. Let's focus on #Malta yeah?

A very simplified #chronology looks like this. Now let's disentangle it. The Neolithic tends to be divided into two... Neolithic & Temple period. It's not so simple. But first, the Għar Dalam phase...

I spend ages telling students that the #Neolithic isn't the magical appearance of settled farmers with domesticated sheep & plants - but that's what we find in #Malta. And it's not b/c they magically appear but b/c people do indeed come via Sicily at a late time -

Domestication had been happening for a LONG time before this - at different speeds across the worlds. And it's not as if plants & animals were domesticated in tandem. They weren't. Is it likely we had earlier settlement? Oh yes. But v hard to find - but ppl working on this &

When the results are out they'll communicate them cos they're great like that. Bear in mind that early activity doesn't always leave traces. Add in coastal erosion, general env destruction and massive building programmes etc & it's no wonder we lack early evidence.

This happens elsewhere because that's the nature of the archaeological record. Neither does it mean there were Neanderthals roaming around. I don't want to veer too off topic - but the pseudos focus on a single taurodontine tooth found in a mixed context. Yeah.

Side note - please do use Maltese spelling. Every laptop and phone has options for "weird" letters. They're part of our language. I'm tired of publications that forego this - there's no excuse. Also bear with me while I type alt text captions.

Ok so Għar Dalam - named after the type site, Għar being a cave. Broadly speaking - & we'd love more remains from this era - we have settled farmers, initially living in caves. For a long time the pottery was dismissed as impressed ware. In reality...see pics...

In short we have loads more to discover. Subsequent Skorba phases sees different pottery - see slide & alt.

But it also sees the beginnings of village life & communal ritual. The village of Skorba has domestic huts but also a "shrine" - a multi-purpose room with traces of communal feasting/eating & more incl the deliberate manipulation of animal bones, see pics.

The figurines are all made of clay and highly burnished. At this point they're all exclusively female. (Sorry about the wonky pics btw)

And then we get to the tricky bit. If we go back to our chronology table, we're told that the next bit is the Temple Period. Temple refers to enormous megalithic stone buildings that served many many purposes. The word temple is outdated but handy shorthand.

But, they only start being built in c. 3600 BC, the Ġgantija phase. The previous two phases are devoid of temples. Old theories thought there was a 'break' and 'population replacement' - b/c that was the framework at the time. Now we know things don't work like that

Tho if you're a pseudo you won't be troubled with details - too inconvenient I guess. I'll have to continue this thread tomorrow b/c... work calls. But for now think of it this way, we have the Early Neolithic, ending with the Red Skorba, the two phases of the 'temple period'

...before temples (Żebbuġ and Mġarr) are roughly the Middle Neolithic. Anyway tomorrow I'll go into this a bit more b/c it's fascinating #archaeology - b/c there's more to life than giant stones. We care about the people & they get up to lots of stuff:-) Peace out for today x