Abstract
AbstractThe archaeological study of the Maltese Islands has received considerable scholarly attention in regard to its island settings and long-term human occupation. However, emphasis on the prehistoric periods of the archipelago runs the risk of creating a biased focus with limited engagement in successive periods. In the spirit of this edited volume, the present article seeks to provide a broader chronological view of two rural areas in the larger island of Malta: Ta’ Qali and ix-Xarolla. These two areas have offered some evidence, through intermittent discoveries from recent construction activities, of three broad periods of increased landscape manipulation and transformation during the Middle-Late Bronze Age, Roman, and Early Modern periods. In seeking to provide an islandscape-based narrative, this article seeks to show that the Maltese Islands experienced periods of more intense human occupation that would have inevitably impacted the agriculturally viable areas of Ta’ Qali and ix-Xarolla. Therefore, despite the Roman period focus of this edited volume, this article takes a long-term view of two rural areas to illustrate identifiable landscape uses and changes.
Highlights
The Maltese Archipelago, positioned in the Central Mediterranean, is one of several sets of islands dotting this broad breadth of sea and has acted as host to six millennia’s worth of human occupation
Within the field of archaeology, the Maltese “Temple Period” has long raised attention to the prehistoric megalithic monuments found on the Maltese Islands, which has appropriated a large share of theoretical engagements as well as academic funding
We argue that the involuntary separation of prehistoric and Roman Malta is in part due to two conditions that need to be overcome through proper intellectual engagements
Summary
The Maltese Archipelago, positioned in the Central Mediterranean, is one of several sets of islands dotting this broad breadth of sea and has acted as host to six millennia’s worth of human occupation. Within the field of archaeology, the Maltese “Temple Period” has long raised attention to the prehistoric megalithic monuments found on the Maltese Islands, which has appropriated a large share of theoretical engagements as well as academic funding. We argue that the involuntary separation of prehistoric and Roman Malta is in part due to two conditions that need to be overcome through proper intellectual engagements. The prominent theorized island archaeology which only encompasses prehistoric Malta cannot continue to dominate the academic domain; for far too long, the study of the Maltese Archipelago has fallen awkwardly between highlighting its prehistoric past for its uniqueness and its subsequent history from a series of Article note: This article is a part of the Special Issue on At the Crossroads of the Mediterranean: Malta and the Central. Mediterranean During the Roman Period, edited by Davide Tanasi, David Cardona, & Robert Brown
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