The Maltese Archipelago at the Dawn of History

The Maltese Archipelago at the Dawn of History. Reassessment of the 1909 and 1959 excavations at Qlejga tal-Barija and other essays is a collection of essays focusing on the reassessment of the multifaceted evidence which emerged by excavations carried out in 1909 and 1959 in the settlement of Bahrija, a key site for the understanding of the later stages of Maltese prehistory before the beginning of the Phoenician colonial period. The two excavations, largely unpublished, produced a large quantity of ceramic, stone and metal artefacts together with skeletal remains. The reappraisal of the material will shed light on critical moments of central Mediterranean prehistory. Main topics such as the Aegean-Sicily-Malta trade network, mass migration movements from the Balkans towards the Central Mediterranean and the colonial dynamics of the Phoenicians operating in the West are addressed in the light of new data and with the support of an array of archaeometric analyses.