The lithic toolkit of late neolithic Ta' Hagrat, Malta

Abstract

The Maltese Islands have attracted the attention of scholars for at least two centuries. This interest was mainly focused on the free-standing megalithic monuments that are found throughout the islands. Such a bias in favor of monuments has impacted severely our knowledge on the material culture of these people. This study on Maltese lithics is an ongoing project that hopes to analyze bit by bit these artifacts recovered from megalithic sites but given no prior attention, except in rare instances. The present author also outlines a simpler method to categorize lithics, particularly those that tend to lack complexity, by morphology and edge motion. These traits allow a proper understanding of a toolkit of an island society, that unlike peninsular Italy must have been influenced heavily by the limited availability of raw materials. A crucial part to this study is indeed the interpretation of import flint lithics that are an eye-opener to the socio-economic mechanisms that were going on by local prehistoric communities. The choice of the megalithic site of Ta’ Hagrat as a study case is stimulated by the nearby location of local siliceous exposed beds and the occurrence of the best anchorage bay on the western side of the island. These two variables are observed as crucial factors that led to an interesting lithic assemblage. Indeed, a clear picture of site multivariability emerges from this study indicating an intentional choice of site location and a complex scenario of raw material movement within the Islands during the Late Neolithic.