Material culture

Abstract

The Circle was excavated under methods that enabled a very high retrieval of artefacts, and thus offers, probably for the first time, a comprehensive understanding of the range and scale of prehistoric material culture from an early monumental site in Malta. Sieving was routinely used on intact deposits, which had already been meticulously excavated by hand with small tools. Thus beads, tiny chips of stone and virtually every potsherd left on the site has been recorded in threedimensions of x-y-z coordinates, weighed, measured and included within this analysis. Unfortunately, earlier work rarely recorded either the findspots of material in sites, or assessed the relative quantities of material, and there are no records that enable a comparative study to provide a benchmark for comparison with this body of data. Methods in recording have changed substantially over the years, and the lack of excavation on Malta (on prehistory and using modern methods) in the three decades prior to this research programme means that this present work must stand alone, without a tail of knowledge and tradition on which to draw. The site offers a unique level of preservation, since the depth of deposit and relatively little natural or human disturbance in some areas of the site have meant that some material remains almost pristine from the moment of deposition until excavation.