Archaeology in Malta (4) : before man

Abstract

According to the evidence we have available the first time man set foot on the Maltese Islands was around 7,000 years ago. By European and Mediterranean standards in general this is a significantly late arrival. Several sites in North Africa, like Haua Fteah in Libya, Ternifine in Algeria, and Fayum in Egypt, have yielded ample traces of the presence and activity of man in his Homo Erectus stage that are as early as half a million years ago. Homo sapiens neanderthalis, on the other hand, in the following evolutionary stage, roamed widely in the lands bordering the northern and eastern sides of the Mediterranean. His bones were found in Gibraltar, at Monte Circeo near Rome, at Petralona in Greece, and on Mount Carmel in Palestine. The bones from the latter site suggest inter-breeding between Neanderthal and his successor Homo sapiens, that is modern man, or else an evolution from one into the other. Impressive manifestations of the artistic skills of Palaeolithic man (50,000 to 10,000 years ago) decorate the walls of caves from Spain through France, to Italy. Closest to us, even Sicily boasts of extremely vivid scenes of cave-art at Addaura, near Palermo, as well as on the island of Levanzo, off its western tip. Sicily is now claiming possession even of remains of Australophithecus, the earliest hominid yet known, whose home has only been located in east and southeast Africa.