Cave site of Latnija in the northern Mellieħa region of Malta. Photo credit: Huw Groucutt
New research published in the journal Nature today (Wednesday 9th April), shows that hunter-gatherers crossed at least 100km of open water to reach the Mediterranean island of Malta 8,500 years ago, a thousand years before the arrival of the first farmers.
Humans are not thought to have been able to reach such remote islands as Malta or live on the limited terrestrial food resources available on small islands before the dawn of agriculture, with longstanding evidence suggesting farmers were first to inhabit these pristine ecosystems.
This new paper, co-authored by the University of Liverpool, shows that hunter-gatherers were able to cross the Mediterranean much earlier than the arrival of the first Neolithic farmers, likely using simple dugout canoes.
This research, which analyses archaeological discoveries from a newly excavated cave site, reveals the first evidence for hunter-gatherer occupations on Malta, appearing over a thousand years before the first farmers arrived, and documenting the longest known hunter-gatherer sea crossings in the region.
"Relying on sea surface currents and prevailing winds, as well as the use of landmarks, stars, and other wayfinding practices, a crossing of about 100 km is likely, with a speed of about 4 km per hour. Even on the longest day of the year, these seafarers would have had to tackle several hours of navigation in darkness across open water," explains Professor Nicholas Vella of the University of Malta, co-investigator of the study.
The discoveries were made by a scientific consortium led by Professor Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI-GEA) and the University of Malta. At the cave site of Latnija in the northern Mellieħa region of Malta, the researchers found the traces of humans in the form of their stone tools, hearths, and cooked food waste. "We found abundant evidence for a range of wild animals, including Red Deer, long thought to have gone extinct by this point in time," explains Prof. Scerri. "They were hunting and cooking these deer alongside tortoises and birds, including some that were extremely large and extinct today."
Excavations at the cave site of Latnija by the scientific consortium led by Professor Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI-GEA) and the University of Malta.
In addition to this, the team of researchers found clear evidence for the exploitation of marine resources. "We found remains of seal, various fish, including grouper, and thousands of edible marine gastropods, crabs and sea urchins, all indisputably cooked," adds Dr James Blinkhorn from the University of Liverpool's Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, he continued: "The use of marine resources may have been critical to hunter-gatherer subsistence on Malta, which was likely too small to support foraging diets reliant only on wild animals and plants on the land"
These discoveries also raise questions about the role that humans may have played in the extinction of endemic animals on Malta and other small and remote Mediterranean islands, and whether distant Mesolithic foraging communities may have been linked through seafaring, prior to the spread of farming.
"The results add a thousand years to Maltese prehistory and force a re-evaluation of the seafaring abilities of Europe's last hunter-gatherers, as well as their connections and ecosystem impacts," adds Prof. Scerri.
The research was supported by Malta's Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, and funded by the European Research Council and the University of Malta's Research Excellence Award.
The article Hunter-gatherer sea voyages extended to remotest Mediterranean islands is avaliable at DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08780-y.
