206 



DISCOVERY 



Stone Age were of an average height, slightly long- 

 headed, possessing regular European features without 

 any trace of prognathism — that projection of the lower 

 part of the face characteristic of a negroid type. A 

 hardy seafaring people, they received their civilisation 

 from the neighbouring continents while maintaining 

 the independence characteristic of an island race. 

 They grew proficient in architecture and handled large 

 blocks of stones with great skill, they were a religious 

 people in the sense that they established a cult, 

 sacrificed animals in honour of a deity, and stowed 

 away, in carefully constructed niches, such portions 

 of the burnt offering as they thought most acceptable 

 to the object of their faith. 



They buried their dead and practised secondary 

 burials,^ when pottery, personal ornaments, and polished 

 axes of greenstone, often broken as a ritual ceremony, 

 were deposited with the bones. 



Another very important discovery was made during 

 the excavation of the Tarxien ruins. Before reaching 

 the Neolithic material, which was buried in about 3 feet 

 of silt, the excavators came upon an area of about 

 25 feet square, thickly covered with crushed clay 

 cinerary urns, copper implements, clay pots, and 

 carbonised matter embedding beads, amulets, bone 

 objects, and other personal adornments, bedecking the 

 deceased at the time of cremation. This was evidently 

 a site for the deposition of cinerary urns by a people 

 who practised cremation. These new-comers reached 

 Tarxien when the temples had collapsed for centuries 

 and when 3 feet of silt had accumulated over the ruins. 

 They were in possession of copper tools and weapons, 

 had a pottery unlike any ware ever met with in the 

 Maltese megalithic buildings, and burned their dead, 

 instead of burying them in earth, as was the custom 

 of the Neolithic people. 



These remains of a later civilisation which had 

 reached the Island when the Neolithic sanctuary had 

 been buried for a good number of centuries constituted 

 the first piece of evidence to be brought to light which 

 made it possible to establish a date by comparison 

 with similar remains found elsewhere. No Bronze 

 Age settlements had previously been discovered in 

 Malta, while the peculiar conditions of the discovery 

 furnished clear and unmistakable stratigraphical 

 evidence of the time relation of the Bronze and 

 Neolithic cultures. 



The metallic implements are of copper and, therefore, 

 the new-comers can be safely dated to about 2000 B.C., 

 the accepted date of the dawn of the Bronze Age in 



' " Secondary burial " is a term applied to the practice, 

 prevalent among some primitive peoples, both ancient and 

 modern, of disinterring the bodies of the dead after the 

 flesh has decayed, and then re-burying the bones or disposing 

 of them in other ways, usually after dismemberment. 



Europe. If it took ten centuries to cover the ruins of 

 Tarxien with 3 feet of silt, this being the accepted rate 

 of deposit in other Mediterranean islands, one can 

 put the height of the Neolithic civilisation in Malta to 

 about 3000 B.C. This date corresponds to the reckon- 

 ing obtained by comparing the Maltese Neolithic 

 pottery with other known ware such as that of Egypt 

 and of Crete. 



The discovery of a Bronze Age settlement at Tarxien, 

 with a full complement of metallic implements and 

 characteristic pottery, is of vital importance when one 

 comes to consider that such implements and such 

 pottery are not met with anywhere else in these 

 islands. Evidently, the new-comers were not numerous, 

 nor did their customs, such as that of burning the 

 dead, prevail over the early habits of the Maltese 

 population. 



Want of sufficient intercourse with continental life 

 has at all times compelled islands to develop on their 

 own lines, hence the length of the Neolithic period in 

 this island. 



Although it is quite possible that some knowledge 

 of the Bronze Age culture of Egypt had reached Malta, 

 in the course of time, it had very little influence on 

 the Neolithic culture, which continued to be developed 

 on local lines, as evinced by the pottery and by the 

 stonework. 



The duration of the Maltese Stone Age culture is 

 still to be determined, but the lesson learned at Tarxien 

 should always be kept in mind by the archseologist 

 who attempts the solution of the problem — viz., that 

 when the small colony, equipped with the tools and 

 the implements of the early Copper Age, reached 

 Tarxien, the people who had built the temples and 

 carved their friezes had been buried for at least a 

 thousand years. 



The twentieth International Congress of Americanists meets 

 in Rio de Janeiro this month. The purpose of the Congress, 

 which meets biennially, is to afford an opportunity for the 

 discussion of the problems of the ethnology, archaeology, and 

 history of the Americas, and as a rule many valuable papers are 

 contributed to the proceedings. The discussions are held in 

 Spanish, French, and English, and the Congress is attended 

 by scientists from all parts of the world, but in particular from 

 the United States and Spanish America. The American School 

 of Archeology in Mexico, the work of which is not sufficiently 

 well known in this country, usually takes a prominent part in 

 the proceedings. It was during the meeting of the Congress in 

 London in 1912, it will be remembered, that the evidence for 

 the existence of tertiary man in South America was thoroughly 

 thrashed out. 



The Congress will sit from August 20-30 under the Presidency 

 of Dr. Lauro-MuUer, a distinguished Brazilian. 



As Brazil is celebrating the Centenary of her independence, 

 and there will be an International Exhibition at Rio, it is hoped 

 that there will be a large and distinguished attendance. The 

 Congress will be followed by a number of excursions to places 

 of interest. 



