Evidence in Malta Cave Indicates Humans May Have Taken to the Open Seas Before Farming, Rewriting 1,000 Years of History
Experts have been examining the topic of societal development for many decades. Researchers have prepared a trajectory of civilizations that they believe humans followed. The analysis was also done for the last Mesolithic communities in Europe, stated Popular Science. However, one discovery changed all their beliefs about how humans progressed socially in these communities. Findings regarding this discovery were published in Nature.
The finding occurred in a cave in Malta’s northern Mellieħa region. The site is known as Latnija, and it contained evidence that implied there was human presence in the area some 8,500 years ago. Experts spotted hearth fragments, stone tools, and cooked food waste. The discovery was noteworthy because the dating of evidence showcased that humans were in the area before the supposed arrival of farmers.
For mesolithic communities, researchers before this finding believed that humans first became farmers, then they turned to seafaring. This assertion was made based on the claim that the tools needed for seafaring were developed after farming tools. This belief was the reason experts thought islands like Malta were one of the last places that were inhabited by humans because of the water travel it required to reach those places. The cooked food waste in the cave contained remains of marine beings like seals, sea urchins, crabs, gastropods, and fish. This indicates that humans went into the waters to gather these creatures for food. Experts speculate that the seafarers must have travelled around 62 miles (100 km) of open water to get these marine resources.
This implies that even before they became farmers, humans had some kind of sea-faring technology. "Relying on sea surface currents and prevailing winds, as well as the use of landmarks, stars, and other wayfinding practices, a crossing of about 100 km is likely, with a speed of about 4 km per hour," said study co-author Nicholas Vella, adding that, "Even on the longest day of the year, these seafarers would have had over several hours of darkness in open water." Thus, it can be determined that even before the arrival of farmers, there was some human presence in the area.
Researchers further noted that the food waste contained remains of animals that had supposedly gone extinct 8,500 years ago, as per present assertions. "We found abundant evidence for a range of wild animals, including Red Deer, long thought to have gone extinct by this point in time," study lead author Eleanor Scerri said. "They were hunting and cooking these deer alongside tortoises and birds, including some that were extremely large and extinct today." This could indicate that some of these species possibly went extinct due to human activities at a later point in time.
The team is hopeful that these findings will encourage others to reexamine the last hunter-gatherer societies in Europe. The team believes there is a lot to find out about these societies in terms of their legacy, their influence on the surrounding environment, and their capabilities. "The results add a thousand years to Maltese prehistory and force a re-evaluation of the seafaring abilities of Europe’s last hunter-gatherers, as well as their connections and ecosystem impacts," said Scerri.