GHAR DALAM
For generations a grotto not far from the small town known today as Birzebbuga, was used by shepherds as a sheepfold. Little did they think that a few feet of earth under their animals' litters hid the very ancient history of their island. And then, one d ay in 1865, Arthur Issel, an English scientist, came to the archipelago looking for fossils.Apart from confirming certain geological knowledge, the grotto of Ghar Dalam provided the very oldest evidence of man's presence on the island.
The rock of the Maltese Islands consists of alluvial deposits from the tertiary era about fifty million years ago. As they hardened, these deposits imprisoned a vast number of shells, as can be seen from walking along the sea shore, particularly below the corniche at Sliema. A million years ago, at the beginning of the ice age, a gigantic erosion caused by torrential rains channelled the ground and began to form the relief.
Scientists claim that at this epoch - the pleistocene - the Maltese Islands were joined to Sicily and Africa and that the separation from Africa took place first. It is worth noting that, whereas the sea between the archipelago and the African continent s ometimes reaches depths of 400 fathoms, between and Sicily it never exceeds 70 fathoms.
At that time the Mediterranean was a vast pastureland with large trees, bushes and marshland grass in which birds and other large winged creatures, freshwater tortoises, elephants, hippopotamus, and many other vertebrates roamed about in search of food.
Excavations in the grotto of Ghar Dalam, which is about 90 meters long, resulted in the discovery of an impressive quantity of the remains of animals of all sorts - herbivora such as antelopes, carnivora such as bears, wolves, and hyenas, and above all elephant and hippopotamus. The two last-named species of mammal are distinguished by the fact that they are dwarves; the smallest is no bigger than a Saint Bernard dog . On the other hand, a swan of gigantic size was also found.
These astounding discoveries, which are specific to Malta, proved that 250,000 years ago the island was still connected to Sicily but cut off from North Africa. The remainder of Europe was covered with an ice cap, and in retreating towards warmer regions the animals had been trapped in this dead-end. Being unable to reach the further shore, they degenerated for a large number of generations before becoming finally extinct. It should not be forgotten that there were elephants in North Africa in Roman times and lions in the Atlas mountains at the end of the last century.
For along time it was believed that there was proof of the presence on the island of Neanderthal man, who lived about 100,000 years ago, since human teeth characteristic of prehistoric man were found in the grotto. Unfortunately, one day a dentist extract ed a tooth froma local inhabitant and found it was exactly the same! The doubts which then arose were later confirmed by modern scientific methods of analysis.
Nonetheless, it was the grotto of Ghar Dalam which furnished the first irrefutable evidence of human presence. About 3800 B.C. shepherds, probably from Sicily, arrived; at all events, their pottery is very similar to that found at Stentinello near Syracus e. On the other hand, the decoration is very similar to that used for the pottery of Dalmatia and the eastern Mediterranean. It is believed that these first inhabitants were also fishers. Their first homes were the natural grottoes in which this chalky co untry abounds.
(Source: MALTA, Bernard Nantet, Editions DELROISSE, Paris)