The isolation of prehistoric Malta

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It has been suggested that certain aspects of island cultures (eg: monumentality in the Maltese archipelago) during the late Neolithic is the result of isolation of the inhabitants from the outside world. Using case studies, discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of this argument.

Ruiha Webster, 10 December 2005

Introduction

During the Neolithic in Malta a series of temple complexes came into being which became progressively elaborate over time. Cunliffe (2001, p.199) states that "relative isolation nutured a more extreme form of monumental principles". It is this concept of ’isolation’, in the Maltese context that this essay will examine.

Geography

Malta is an archipelago in the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, with three main islands. Malta itself, Gozo, and Comino lying between them. Malta is a total of 316 square km and consists mainly of limestone plateaus (CIA 2005). The islands lacks many natural resources apart from argricultural basics, such as the sun, water and arable land, and are susecptible to seasonal fluctuations, excessive population and erosion. (Stoddart et al. 1993) Although the islands are at a crossroads in the Mediterranean and are accessible from all directions, they are usually invisible from even the nearest land in Sicily. (Malone & Stoddart 2004, p.93)

Phases of development

The Maltese islands present archaeologists with a specific instance of a ’cycle of ritual elaboration’ and insularity which can be matched by few other prehistoric cultures (Stoddart et al. 1993). Stoddart (1999) describes a number of prehistoric phases of development starting with Colonisation then Consolidation, where stylistic contact was maintained with the rest of the Mediterranean. Durring the Zebbug phase, or Ritualisation, there was linkage with others cultures through the exchange of ochre, greenstone axes, obsidian and other items. (Stoddart et al. 1993)

The next phase is described as that of Ritual Divergence and covers the Ggantija (c.3600-3000BC) and Tarxien (3000-2500BC) periods. The construction of temples during this phase coincided with a cycle of cultrual, and possibly physical, isolation (Stoddart 1999). The complex design elements of these temples has not been found outside Malta and illustrates a form of insular creativity (Pace 1996). Isolation involved an increasing investment of time and effort into creating local products. Limestone provided for temple construction and small sculptures and local clay was also used for sculptures. Materials from the outside world were less available so previously obtained items were reworked, for example, older greenstone was transformed into pendants and sometimes stored in the temples. (Stoddart 1999)

During the Tarxien period ritual architecture peaked. Stoddart et.al. argue that the cause of this temple building cycle can only be understood by placing Malta as an isolated archipelago, leaving and then re-entering the exchange processes of the Mediterranean world. (Stoddart et al. 1993)

"If one considers the combined biogeographical and cultural context of an isolated island, increasingly conscious of less frequent contact with the ancestral mainland…one has a plausible scenario for the placing of the Maltese temples." (Stoddart et al. 1993, p.17)

The next stage described by Stoddart is The Reincorporation within the Mediterranean, or Tarxien Cemetary. This period is still under debate but systems of pottery, the appearance of cremation rites and of copper alloys all point to increased involvement with the outside world. (Stoddart 1999)

Description of the temples

There are a number of Neolithic temple complexes still extant on Malta and Gozo. These include, Hagar Qim, Mnajdra, Tarxien and Ggantija.

Within the temples there are one or more pairs of semi-circular rooms set facing each-other, with each pair separated by a rectangular space, or corridor. The entrance was incorporated into a huge concave façade which faced a large open area, while the rest of the temple was surrounded by an outer wall. A small model of a building found at Ta Hagrat indicates that the temples were roofed. (Evans 1966)

The rooms often contain stone altars carved with spiral or animal designs and the floors were plastered and red ochre was used for decoration. A quantity of animal bone was found along with drinking vessels and flint knives. Tie holes are present and are believed to have held animals to the walls and there are holes in the ground that may have drained liquid. These details suggest that sacrifices may have played a part in the rituals performed inside the temples. (Malone et al. 2005)

The buildings are characterised by a sub-division of internal space which became more elaborate over time. This has been interpreted as an indication that access to inner areas was becoming controlled by the elite of a stratified society. Boundaries in the temples were well marked. Doorways are massive and often had raised thresholds where it is believed that barriers may have been fitted. The boundaries between the internal court and the rooms were marked by elevation, screens or sculpture. (Grima 2001)

Why did Malta develop this unique culture?

The specialisation developed in the Neolithic Maltese monuments is not found in any other collective tomb-builders in Western Europe (Evans 1959). Archaeologists have considered why this is the case and explanations have often focused on the geographical and cultural isolation of the islands. Evans (1973) explains that island communities often exaggerate the development of some aspect of their culture, which is usually connected with the ceremonial.

"The isolation and relative security, or perhaps boredom, of island life can allow the continuance of trends which in a mainland environment are likely to be inhibited by various factors." (p.519)

Malone et.al. (2005) support this idea in saying that conditions in Malta enabled a closed and isolated society to develop. On Malta, ceremonial burial rites culminated in the construction of distinctive rock-cut and stone built monuments. This seems to have been the result of pressures building up within the closed society. Evans (1977) sees the buildings as the physical expression of elaborate rituals, with the temples being used to meet the need for a larger space than could be provided for by the underground tombs. In one case, the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, the tomb itself underwent elaborate alterations so that ceremonies could be held inside. Evans describes a social process fuelled by pressures building up within the island society. Eventually the time and effort demanded by this process strained the population and may have assisted in its eventual breakdown. Pressures could originate from the stratified social structure necessary to organise the labour to build monuments. Evans suggests that group rivalries may have provided the motivation to build larger monuments along with providing a "peaceful outlet for the tensions generated in an isolated island society which was probably subject to considerable population pressure." (p.23)

Malone et al. also consider internal pressures. During the Zebbug phase religious groups focused on the provision of underground tombs and ritual developments were similar to trends in other areas, such as Sicily. Yet hundreds of years later environmental degradation and population increases may have created problems. Items found from this time (for example, obese human figures made in stone or clay) suggest that society had an obsession with fertility. Fewer materials were imported during this time than previously. (Malone et al. 2005)

"The prehistoric Maltese society seems to have let a fixation on sculpture and art replace contact with the world beyond the island’s rocky coasts." (Malone et al. 2005, p.6)

This may explain why the temples were so numerous, for they may have been built by a number of rival groups, each competing for physical resources (Malone et al. 2005). Competition in the construction of Maltese megaliths may have replaced competition in the pursuit of the exchange of materials with the outside world (Grima 2001).

Evidence taken from molluscs and pollen suggests a mainly treeless landscape from an early stage. Timber would not have been available for the construction of buildings and other forms of material culture such as boats, which would have provided contact with other Mediterranean cultures. Any links with the outer world would have been dependent on external visits or conservation of timber to make return visits in the same craft. Stoddart et al. (1993) suggest that the geographical situation of the island allowed for the potential of a crisis.

"In suitable political and economic context, the underlying geographical isolation would have enabled the development of cultural isolation." (p.5)

Alternative ideas

Robb (2001) describes the arguments for isolation as being based on four observations:

1. The amount of obsidian (externally sourced) decreasing in the temple period;

2. Few imported pots have been found;

3. Temple period ceramics are different from contemporary neighbouring pottery, unlike earlier ceramics;

4. No other contemporary Mediterranean peoples made similar monumental structures. They are unique.

Yet he disagrees with the idea that isolation was the determining factor in the development of Maltese temples and associated culture.

"I …argue that islands did not fashion Maltese temple society but that rather Maltese temple society created cultural island in the process of forming a local identity." (p.177)

He feels that given the lack of complete environmental and habitation data for the Maltese Neolithic, population pressures must remain a supposition. He points out that since the Maltese began building "small proto-temples before the temple period their cultural divergence cannot be explained purely by temple-period environmental conditions" (p.180). Robb sees the islands as part of a "well-travelled communication network" and asks, why did Malta appear closely integrated with neighbours during early Neolithic life (as shown by material culture) before becoming isolated in the early fourth millennium BC? He notes that few explanations bring in the concepts of social choice and human agency. (Robb 2001)

Robb counters most of the points for isolation, as listed above. If seen in a regional light it will be noted that the obsidian trade decreased throughout the whole central Mediterranean after the initial Copper Age. Pottery also seems not to have been an important inter-regional trade item at that time and all neighbouring regions had its own styles of pottery. Only the forth point remains – that the temple monuments are unique, and he attacks this by saying "if we then use isolation to explain the temples, the result is a circular logic in which the temples are ultimately used to account for their own existence." (p.187)

He suggests that Malta’s cultural difference expressed through temple architecture and practices does not passively reflect geography or the degree of actual contact. Instead he offers the idea that islands are "inhabited metaphors and natural systems of boundedness and separation" (p.192). It is noted that Maltese temples and rites incorporated elements found in earlier Neolithic societies and the reformation of these elements into temple religion happened quickly. His explanation for this is that human action lay behind the growth of temple religion as the reworking of inherited rites (Robb 2001).

"Theorising the relationships between island and culture in terms of human agency…provides the Maltese Neolithic with a firmer theoretical footing, accommodates both Malta’s cultural difference and extensive contact and trade and does not require us to postulate population pressure or environmental degradation without supporting data." (p.196)

Broodbank (2000) suggests that isolation did not create social change on Malta but was created by it. He states that previous studies of island cultures have been restricted by stereotypical ideas and wished to replace them with theories in which the ’role of human agency is more prominent’ (p.18). During the Ggantija and Tarxien periods, when there was little communication with neighbours, society chose to close itself off from the rest of the world.

"What seems more plausible is closure agreed upon or imposed, as presumably one element in a set of social strategies that enabled colossal monumnet building…Whatever happened on Malta happened not because the island was intrinsically isolated but because it was far enough from other land, in Neolitic terms, to make itself isolated if its islanders…wished it to be so." (p.20)

Malone & Stoddart (2004) refute the above ideas and any claims that ’islands are ideas’.

"Maltese temples and their associated material culture stand out as markedly distinctive and wholly different from other contemporary earthbound examples of ritualisation. The construction of cultural identity was principally centred on the monumentalisation of local materials, albeit bolstered by the presence of small and relatively scare exotic artefacts." (p.95)

Conclusion

Scholars have examined the monumental architecture and the material culture of Neolithic Malta to consider why it developed along lines like no other culture in its time. Isolation has been sited as a major contributing factor to the development of this society. Many theories of isolation have focused on geographical aspects directing cultural development. As Malta was physically isolated, it experienced an inevitable divergence from a similar regional culture (Robb 2001). Other theories have rejected these claims and looked instead to human agency in the process of creating an isolated culture. The question has not been answered to the satisfaction of all parties. Was the temple culture and associated ritual behaviour of Neolithic Malta a product of geographical and environmental forces or was it the product of human agency and the cultural choice for a Neolithic society?

References

BROODBANK, G., 2000. An island archaeology of the early Cyclades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CIA, 2005. CIA World Factbook [online]. Available from: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ [6 December 2005].

CUNLIFFE, B., 2001. The Oxford illustrated history of Prehistoric Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

EVANS, J.D., 1959. Malta. London: Thames and Hudson.

EVANS, J.D., 1966. What went on in a Maltese Megalithic temple? In: Pace, A. (ed.) Maltese Prehistoric art 5000-2500BC. Valetta: Patrimonju Publishing, 39-44.

EVANS, J.D., 1973. Islands as laboratories of cultural change. In: Renfrew, A.C. (ed.) The explanation of cultural change: models in prehistory. London: Duckworth, 517-520.

EVANS, J.D., 1977. Island archaeology in the Mediterranean: problems and opportunities. World Archaeology, 9 (1), 12-26.

GRIMA, R., 2001. An iconography of insularity: a cosmological interpretation of some images and spaces in the late Neolithic temples of Malta. Papers from the Institute of Archaeology, 12, 48-65.

MALONE, C. et al., 2005. The death cuts of prehistoric Malta. Scientific American, Vol.15 No.1, 14-24.

MALONE, C. & STODDART, S., 2004. Towards an island of mind? In: Cherry,J. (ed.) Explaining social change: studies in honour of Colin Renfrew. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, ?

PACE, A., 1996. The artistic legacy of small island communities: the case of the Maltese islands (5000-2500BC). In: Pace, A. (ed.) Maltese Prehistoric art 5000-2500BC, Valetta: Patrimonju Publishing, 1-12.

ROBB, J., 2001. Island identities: ritual, travel and the creation of difference in Neolithic Malta. European Journal of Archaeology, Vol.4 No.2, 175-202.

STODDART, S. et al., 1993. Cult in an island society: prehistoric Malta in the Tarxien period. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Vol.3 No.1, 3-19.

STODDART, S., 1999. Long term dynamics of an island community: Malta 5500BC – 2000AD. In: Tykot, R.H. et al. (eds.) Social dynamics of the Prehistoric central Mediterranean. London: Accordia Research Institute, 137-147.