Exploration into why a rich Temple-building civilization died out on Malta

Ancient Origins ^ | December 25, 2014 | Mark Miller

[SunkenCiv]

The ancient Temple People civilization of Malta did not suffer invasions, widespread disease or famine, past research has shown. Why their culture died is a mystery.

A large team of researchers is carrying out studies to determine why the Temple People’s civilization on the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Gozo ended. The Temple People had an incredibly rich culture with unique art, stone temples and structures, huge burial sites and advanced agriculture going back to 4000 BC and ending around 2900 BC.

The stone structures on the island are among the oldest free-standing stone structures in history, Malta Today says in a long story about the new research...

The Temple People had 30 temple complexes on Malta and Gozo in their 1,100-year history. They had intricate burial sites, complex rituals and animal sacrifices, Malta Today says.

Artwork flourished. Archaeologists and others have found hundreds of ancient statues. Some are famous as abundantly fertile "fat ladies", but these are only around 15 percent of the statues found. Phallic and androgynous symbols are much more common...

They will study the remains of mollusks found in the cores to determine the ecology and cultural habits of ancient people of Malta and a nearby island, Gozo. The species of snails on Malta are the same as 7,000 years ago. There are three main types of snails on Malta, said researcher Katrin Fenech: land snails, brackish water mollusks and marine mollusks. If you find a snail shell that needed shade in a dry, rocky place, one could assume the area had previously been treed before people arrived on Malta in Neolithic times.

[Fred Nerks]

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/69/6e/a4/696ea4656025f37431c85ced94a177e3.jpg

content posted on #20

[SunkenCiv]

Wow, thanks FN!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, he is one of my guilty pleasures. :’) Interesting additional info about the skulls.

Incidentally, the Goblekli Tepe site construction looks almost nothing like the Maltese sites; also, radiocarbon dating is good out to 50,000 years, not 30,000, and the GT site has been successfully RC dated. the old white haired guy was either full of crap, or unqualified, or both.

> The best dates available so far for Göbekli Tepe stem from charcoal samples of short-lived plants. Two dates for Enclosure A settle in the late 10th and early 9th millennium calBC (Kromer and Schmidt 1998), but they could also indicate the use of older fill material. The last intrusions in the big enclosures can be dated by a charcoal sample found under a fallen pillar fragment in Enclosure A to the middle of the 9th millennium (Dietrich, in press).

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/234004144_A_Radiocarbon_Date_from_the_Wall_Plaster_of_Enclosure_D_of_Gbekli_Tepe

[Fred Nerks]

NATURE VS NURTURE:

"More still: the same formation of the head presents itself in children yet unborn; and of this truth we have had convincing proof in sight of a foetus enclosed in the womb of a mummy of a pregnant woman, ... which is, at this moment, in our collection." The foetus was aged 7 months! (6)

The records of the inspections of the Maltese skulls also suggest that there were elongated skulls present that weren't artificially modified, but were a natural feature (a genetic aberration, or an inherited one). The recognition that larger skulls also have a larger brain capacity certainly provides an impetus for such practices, but doesn't answer the question of who the original cone-heads were, or why they were emulated for so persistently around the ancient world. Sadly, these are questions that can only be answered through comparative DNA testing of elongated skulls around the world, something that has yet to be done.

[PIF]

Thanks, Civ - hope your Christmas was cheery and bright. However, not signing up for the cookie on the site.

Will have to take your word.

Thanks again.

[Larry Lucido]

Have archeologists located the first Malt-O-Meal factories there?

[SunkenCiv]

What, you don’t like Christmas cookies?!? ;’) Merry Christmas to you and yours!

[SunkenCiv]

Michael Cremo discovered some kind of prehistoric hot breakfast food factory, but I can’t remember the name. ;’)

[ZULU]

:)

[BenLurkin]

Interesting article and pics. Very cool!

[Fred Nerks]

3 January, 2015 - 12:21 Igor Gontcharov Elongated Skulls in utero: A Farewell to the Artificial Cranial Deformation Paradigm? - See more at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/elongated-skulls-utero-farewell-artificial-cranial-deformation-paradigm-002526#sthash.sQh6LmBS.dpuf

http://ancientscienceartifacts.org/?p=142

Children Of The ‘Elongated Skulls’ As A Challenge To The ‘Artificial Cranial Deformation’ Theory

[Fred Nerks]

Tiedemann. “The singularly shaped skulls which excited your attention, I obtained in 1827, in the Province of Upper Peru, now called Bolivia. They seem to belong to an extinct race of mankind. I found them in the ancient graves called Huacas, in the great alpine valley of Titicaca, which is likewise remarkable for being the country in which civilization, planted by the Peruvians, flourished to a degree unrivaled among the other tribes of the new world. These sepulchres have the form of high round towers, and in some places are constructed of enormous masses of masonry. The stones are very carefully and skilfully arranged, in a manner similar to that observed in the old structures of Greece and Italy, named by our antiquarians Cyclopean...

source

GOOGLE Sardinia ancient towers

Ancient towers, Sillustani, Peru