The archaeology of Gozo : from prehistoric to Arab times

Abstract

Of the 50,000 years of Man's existence in his present form of physical evolution - that of Homo Sapiens Sapiens - only the last 7000 years can be accounted for archaeologically on the island of Gozo. His first presence on the island is not evidenced before 5000 B.C., that is, not before he learnt to grow his own food and to construct sea-craft that was reliable enough to allow him to brave large tracts of open sea; even though there were long periods of time, each of thousands of years, namely during the Ice Ages, when Gozo, together with the rest of the Maltese archipelago, was physically connected by land to the European continent as a result of drastic falls in sea levels.