{"id":32527,"date":"2026-05-22T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/?p=32527"},"modified":"2026-05-22T07:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T12:24:18","slug":"the-discovery-that-pushes-maltas-prehistory-back-1000-years-they-arrived-by-open-sea-fed-on-giants-that-have-since-disappeared-and-now-no-one-knows-what-else-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/the-discovery-that-pushes-maltas-prehistory-back-1000-years-they-arrived-by-open-sea-fed-on-giants-that-have-since-disappeared-and-now-no-one-knows-what-else-the\/32527\/","title":{"rendered":"The discovery that pushes Malta\u2019s prehistory back 1,000 years: they arrived by open sea, fed on \u201cgiants\u201d that have since disappeared\u2026 and now no one knows what else they carried between the islands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Long before sails, engines, maps, or compasses, a small group of hunter-gatherers appears to have crossed open Mediterranean water to reach Malta. The trip was not a short paddle along the shore. New evidence<\/a> points to a voyage of at least about 62 miles, likely in simple dugout canoes, roughly 8,500 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That finding changes a familiar story. For years, many researchers thought remote Mediterranean islands like Malta were too small, too isolated, and too hard to reach before farming communities arrived. Now, stone tools, ancient fireplaces, and cooked food remains suggest that people were already living there about 1,000 years earlier than expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A risky sea crossing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The work was led by Professor Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, with co-investigator Professor Nicholas Vella<\/a> from the University of Malta. Their team argues that these ancient travelers were not just drifting by chance. They probably used currents, winds, stars, coastal landmarks, and practical sea knowledge to make the crossing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vella said the travelers would have spent \u201cseveral hours of darkness in open water.\u201d That detail matters. Imagine paddling through the night with no lighthouse ahead, no GPS in your hand, and no guarantee that land would appear in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n

Read More: A 17th-century Arabic document turns up in a pile of trash\u2026 and what it reveals about everyday life changes the \u201cofficial\u201d narrative of the era<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The likely starting point was Sicily, the nearest large landmass. Even at a speed of about 2.5 miles per hour, the route would have taken many hours, and currents may have made the real journey longer than a straight line on a map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cave that changed the timeline<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The key evidence came from Latnija Cave in the Mellie\u0127a region of northern Malta. Over several years, researchers excavated the site in careful detail and found stone flakes, thick layers of ash, hearths, and burned animal remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In simple terms, a hearth is an ancient fireplace. Finding one matters because it shows people were not merely passing through. They were making fires, cooking food, and spending time in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The University of Malta said the discoveries extend the human story of the islands by a full millennium. That is not a small adjustment. It adds an entire earlier chapter to Maltese prehistory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who were these people?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These early visitors belonged to the Mesolithic period<\/a>, often called the Middle Stone Age<\/a>. That was a time after the last Ice Age<\/a>, when many communities still lived by hunting, gathering, fishing, and collecting wild foods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were not farmers. They did not arrive with fields of grain, herds of sheep, or pottery traditions linked to later Neolithic communities. The Neolithic, also called the New Stone Age, is the period when farming spread widely<\/a> through Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n

Read More: Neolithic life under the microscope: cooking, cleaning, and taking out the trash weren\u2019t \u201cminor chores\u201d\u2026 they were the hidden engine of society (and now there\u2019s proof)<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

That difference is the heart of the discovery. Malta was not first reached by farmers bringing a new way of life, at least not according to the evidence now reported from Latnija. It had already been visited, and likely inhabited, by people who lived from wild resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What they ate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The food remains<\/a> tell a surprisingly rich story. The team found evidence of red deer, tortoises, birds, fish, seals, crabs, sea urchins, and thousands of edible sea snails. Some birds and animals are now extinct on Malta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We found thousands of animal bones, many of them burned,” Scerri said. That fits with the picture of people cooking meals at the site, not just leaving behind scattered objects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The official study also reports that roughly one-quarter of the animal remains examined in detail showed burning or charring. In everyday terms, the cave floor preserved traces of ancient dinners, campfires, and repeated visits over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A different island story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For a long time, small remote islands were often seen as natural places untouched by people until farming made life there easier. Malta now looks more complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If hunter-gatherers lived there hundreds of years before farmers, they may have affected the island\u2019s animals and landscapes earlier than previously thought. That does not mean they caused every extinction. But it does mean scientists now have to ask sharper questions about timing, hunting pressure, and island ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Blinkhorn<\/a>, one of the corresponding authors, said the team found marine foods that were “undoubtedly cooked.” That detail points to people who knew how to use both land and sea, which would have helped them survive on a small island with limited resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why it matters?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The discovery is not just about Malta. It also raises a wider question about the last hunter-gatherers of Europe<\/a>. Were some of them more connected by sea than researchers once assumed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study suggests that distant Mesolithic communities may have had contact across the Mediterranean earlier than expected. That does not prove a vast sea network. But it opens the door to one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n

Read More: The rubber used in underwater tunnels is degrading much faster than expected: the problem is silent\u2026 and it could become incredibly expensive if no one stops it in time<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

There is also a practical lesson here. Technology does not always move in a neat line from simple to advanced. People with basic boats, sharp observation, and hard-earned experience can sometimes do things that look almost impossible from a modern desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What changed and what did not<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A January 2026 author correction<\/a> to the paper dealt with details in the way some regional radiocarbon dates were modeled. The correction said those changes did not meaningfully alter the main interpretation of a pre-farming human presence at Latnija.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is worth noting because archaeology often works by tightening dates, testing assumptions, and revising models. The big picture remains the same, for the most part. Hunter-gatherers appear to have reached Malta before the first farmers did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ancient sailors, modern questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day, this discovery makes the Mediterranean feel less like a barrier and more like a difficult road. A dangerous one, yes. But not an impossible one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These travelers had no sails, no written charts, and no metal tools. Still, they crossed open water, reached a remote island, and left behind enough evidence for scientists to reconstruct part of their world thousands of years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The official study has been published in Nature<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long before sails, engines, maps, or compasses, a small group of hunter-gatherers appears to have crossed open Mediterranean water to … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":32530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","resize-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32527"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32536,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32527\/revisions\/32536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}