Tarxien, Xagħra Circle and tas-Silġ. Occupation and reuse of temple sites in the early Bronze Age

Abstract

This paper was originally inspired by the apparent striking similarity in the stratigraphic sequence of two outstanding prehistoric archaeological sites discovered and excavated at an interval of almost eighty years: the Tarxien Temples, excavated by Themistocles Zammit in the years 1915-1919 (Zammit 1930), and the Xaghra Circle, investigated by an AngloMaltese research team on the sister island of Gozo between 1987 and 1994 (Bonanno et al. 1990; Stoddart et al. 1993; Malone et al. 1993). Interest in this parallelism was heightened by even more recent developments in the investigation of a sector of the site of Tas-Silg conducted by the Department of Classics and Archaeology of the University of Malta (Frendo & Bonanno 1997). The relationship between the two major horizons identified at Tarxien, representing two subsequent periods and cultures of Maltese prehistory, and its parallel occurrence at the Xaghra Circle (now emerging also at Tas-Silg), call for a re-examination of the chronological context of a handful of objects recovered from Tarxien. Their new dating is suggested in the light of the chronological upheavals and new patterns of cultural diffusion (or non-diffusion) in European and Mediterranean prehistory brought about by the radiocarbon and dendrochronology revolution (Renfrew 1972, 1973).