Mediterranean hunter gatherers navigated long-distance sea journeys well before the first farmers
Small, remote islands were long thought to have been the last frontiers of pristine natural systems. Humans are not thought to have been able to reach or inhabit these environments prior to the dawn of agriculture, and the technological shift that accompanied this transition. A paper recently published in Nature, however, points at evidence that hunter-gatherers were crossing at least 100 kilometers of open water to reach Malta.
The discoveries were made by a scientific consortium led by Professor Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI-GEA) and the University of Malta. At the cave site of Latnija in the northern Mellieħa region of Malta, the researchers found the traces of humans in the form of their stone tools, hearths, and cooked food waste. In addition to this, the team of researchers found clear evidence for the exploitation of marine
resources.
These discoveries also raise questions about the extinction of endemic animals on Malta and other small and remote Mediterranean islands, and whether distant Mesolithic communities may have been linked through seafaring.
Study of fire
One of the authors involved in the publication is Aitor Burguet-Coca, who worked as a postdoc at the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology when the research was conducted. 'I believe that this work, and especially my contribution to the study of fire at the Latnija site is very well linked to the research carried out at the faculty on fire and its relevance in human evolution. The Faculty has a long tradition in the study of fire in hunter-gatherer contexts, with research and publications by Wil Roebroeks, Amanda Henry, Andrew Sorensen, Femke Reidsma, among others. In this sense, Amanda and Femke recently organised an international symposium in which I participated.'
The research was supported by Malta’s Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, and funded by the European Research Council and the University of Malta’s Research Excellence Award.