About seven thousand years ago, men came to the Island of Malta,
using rafts and bringing with them livestock, utensils and seed.
They occupied the archipelago and developed a community which was
well established during the Neolithic Age.
Different kinds of pottery, even from the earliest Ghar Dalam phase,
indicate that there were farmers and stock raisers as well as
fishermen among those people who must have been of Eastern
Mediterranean origin though they came from Sicily. Their pottery
work indicate that they soon started to develop their own identity.
Though the earliest amongst them must have used caves for living and
burial, village communities quickly appeared as can be seen
especially from the remains of Sqolba and Borg in-Nadur.
The Maltese Neolithic communities developed their crafts and
particularly their ability to produce and decorate pottery and to
carve stone and build magnificent megalithic temples. They also dug
burial grounds and at Hal Saflieni (Paula) and underground temple,
known as the Hypogeum, implying a cult of Dead.
The temples of Mgarr, Tarxien, Hagar Qim, Mnajdra and Ggantija are
megalithic remains which stand out as evidence of the fact that life
centred round the religious cult of the Mother Goddess represented
by massive statues commonly referred to as 'The Fat Lady'. A
priestly order dominated the people especially through its oracles.
The pre-historic settlers of Malta remained shrouded in mystery
until some time in the Ninth century B.C. Phoenician seafarers came
to the Island and colonised it.
