92 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[Apkil 1, 1901. 



Europe during the later Pliocene aud early Pleistocene 

 times, that is, at the period when the greater portion of 

 northern Europe was enveloped in a iner de ylace. 



These people were driven south by the intense cold, 

 and they settled at many points around the Mediter- 

 ranean. It is an interesting fact that though the remains 

 of the Neolithic races are so plentifully distributed over 

 the central Mediterranean area, no evidences have yet 

 been forthcoming to show that the Pnleoliths ever in- 

 habited it. 



A jjrobable explanation of the absence of Paleolithic 

 relics in the central Mediterranean region is afforded 

 when the nature of the physical changes that occurred 

 in the neighbourhood at the beginning of the Pleistocene 

 period is taken into consideration. The Pliocene and 

 Pleistocene depo.sits which envelop the lowlands and 

 flank the highlands of southern France, Italy, Sicily, 

 Malta and northern Africa, as well as the vast work of 

 accretion which Etna has achieved during its compara- 

 tively short existence, afford some idea of the nature 

 and magnitude of the forces that have acted on the area. 

 The birth of Etna at the close of the Pliocene period was 

 followed by the breaching of the land barrier which 

 connected Eiirope with Africa, and its gradual subsi- 

 dence beneath the invading waters. The changes were 

 slow and tentative, and not of the nature of a cataclysm. 

 The animals and plants of the land barrier were cut oil 

 from the mainland, and as their habitats gradually 

 lessened in area so they died off, and left their remains 

 to form the massive ossiferous agglomerates that now fill 

 the caves, fissures, and ravines of Sicily and Malta. 



Of the man of this period nothing is known, but it is 

 possible that he recognised the danger of the situation, 

 and, migrating, so escaped the fate which befell the 

 remainder of the animal life of the district. He dis- 

 appeared as mysteriously as he came, and the dehaclv 

 that finally swept the area aud divided the continents 

 was such as to remove every vestige of the old life, and 

 every evidence of his occupation. His Neolithic successor 

 experienced quieter times, and dwelt under conditions 

 that were favourable to the preservation of his remains. 

 Sicily and Sardinia are not the only places in the central 

 barrier that have furnished evidences of pre-historic races. 

 The Maltese Islands have, of late years, been carefully 

 explored, aud have added, if not an important at least 

 an interesting quota to our knowledge of the subject. 



In the early sixties the late Admiral Spratt and the 

 late Professor Leith Adams carried on a series of in- 

 vestigations in the islands. The discovery of a stone 

 weapon by Mr. J. Frere, f.r.s., in a garden at Villa 

 Frere, near Valetta, attracted the attention of Adams, 

 and for several years he gave special attention to the 

 question of the occupation of the islands by pre-historic 

 man. Professor Issol of Florence visited the islands 

 in 1868, and, while superintending the excavation of 

 a series of trenches in the Har Dalam cavern at Mai'sa 

 Scirocco, he discovered, at a depth of four feet from the 

 surface, the remains of a fire together with a collection 

 of bvirnt mammalian bones and fragments of a coarse 

 kind of pottery. It is to be regretted that for nearly 

 a quarter of a century after the return of Issel to Italy 

 no further steps were taken to follow up this discovery. 

 In the years 1887 to 1894 it was my good fortune to 

 make several additions to our knowledge of the extinct 

 fauna of the district, and to discover further evidences 

 bearing upon the history of the islands' early inhabitants. 

 The more important discoveries were made in the Uiod 

 Har Dalam, a ^orge which is situated on the eastern 



coast of Malta, and whose sides arc perforated with a 

 series of caves and fissures. The largest of these caves, 

 known as Har Dalam, is more than half filled with a 

 series of stratified floor deposits consisting of alternating 

 layers of loam, ossiferous agglomerate, clay, stalagmite 

 and boulders. These layers ai-e arranged in two well- 

 defined divisions, the lower of which is separated from 

 the upper by a massive layer of stalagmitic conglomerate 

 representing a period of time of considerable duration. 

 In the lower division of the series was found a curious 

 assemblage of jaws, tusks, teeth, and limb-bones of 

 extinct elephants, hippopotami, bears, deer, wolves and 

 giant dormice. In the upper occurred thousands of 

 limb-bones, jaws, teeth, and antlers of deer, together with 

 the remains of horses, dogs, ashes of domestic fires, frag- 

 ments of a coarse kind of pottery, and the metacarpal 

 bone of a human skeleton. These relics of the Maltese 

 aborigines were found at several points in the cavern, 

 but always at about the same liorizon and in the upper 

 division of tlie deposits. The latter fact is significant, 

 as it agrees with the results of similar researches in 

 Sicily, where no evidences of man have yet been forth- 

 coming from deposits that were contemporary with the 

 now extinct Quarteruary mammalia. The different types 

 of animals in the two divisions of the Har Dalam 

 deposits, and the varying states of mineralization in 

 which the remains occur, indicate that the divisions be- 

 long to two distinct epochs, and that a lengthy period 

 of time intervened between them. 



The reason of this must be sought for in the physical 

 conditions under which the floor deposits of the cavern 

 were l^id down, and by which the gorge was deepened 

 to its present level. 



Probably no part of Europe has undergone such ex- 

 tensive changes in its configuration in recent times as 

 the area now under consideration. The instability 

 of the Mediterranean floor has been many times 

 demonstrated during the jjresent century, as for example 

 the inundations along the Italian coast, the upheaval of 

 the Adventure bank off Sicily, and the submarine vol- 

 canic outbursts off Pantaleria in 1892. 



A few years ago there was a tendency among geo- 

 logists to call in the aid of cataclysms and other sudden 

 operations of nature to explain geological phenomena ; 

 but of late the pendulum of geological thought has swung 

 to the opposite extreme, and the doctrine of cataclysms 

 has made way for that of the uniformitarian, who advo- 

 cates the theory of slow progression as the effect of un- 

 countable centuries of imperceptible movement. The 

 area around Malta and Sicily affords abundant examples 

 of both kinds of operations. The Har Dalam gorge, like 

 most of the valleys and ravines of Sicily, JMalta, Gozo, 

 and Tunis, is bounded by rugged and precipitous clifl's, 

 whose sides offer abundant evidences of the action of 

 marine and river agencies. 



^[any of these gorges were probably initiated during 

 the upheaval which the area underwent in early Pliocene 

 times, and afterwards served as the main linqg of drain- 

 age of the country. Their bottoms are frequently covered 

 with boulder beds and breccias, and their sides are 

 scored with smooth curvilinear groovings suggestive of 

 the action of considerable bodies of running water. 



The Har Dalam gorge was then probably a tributary 

 of the river whose bed may still be traced along the sea 

 bottom for several miles to the south-cast of Malta. On 

 the banks of this river the late Professor Leith Adams 

 discovered the remains of freshwater turtles, swans, and 

 other aquatic birds, together with immense quantities 



