Malta’s First Islanders: Għar Dalam Cave Dig Expands to Uncover 7,000-Year-Old Hunter-Gatherer Secrets

Cave dig expands to learn more about hunter-gatherers
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Għar Dalam’s ancient whispers are about to get louder. This week, Heritage Malta and the University of Malta announced a three-year extension of the “First Malta” project, a €1.2 million excavation that is burrowing deeper into the island’s only known Mesolithic rock shelter. For the first time since the 1920s, archaeologists will peel back layers untouched for 7,400 years, hoping to pinpoint exactly when hunter-gatherers paddled ashore, what they ate, and why they kept coming back to this limestone corridor overlooking Marsaxlokk Bay.

Locals simply call it “the cave at the end of the road.” Tourists know it as the black-mouthed tunnel where dwarf elephants once roamed. But for archaeologist Dr. Nicholas Vella, Għar Dalam is Malta’s earliest passport stamp. “Every spoonful of soil could rewrite the story of the first islanders,” he says, brushing red earth from a tiny obsidian blade no bigger than a fingernail. The volcanic glass, sourced from the Aeolian Islands 200 km north, proves these nomads were already part of a Mediterranean maritime network—centuries before farmers arrived with their wheat and goats.

The dig expansion comes after 2023 lidar scans revealed a hidden inner chamber sealed by stalagmites. Ground-penetrating radar suggests the cavity is stuffed with bone-rich sediment dating to 5900 BCE, a millennium earlier than previously recorded human activity on the archipelago. If confirmed, Malta’s timeline of occupation will jump from the Neolithic temple builders to the forgotten Mesolithic mariners who roasted songbirds under flickering torches.

For Birżebbuġa residents, the project is personal. Mayor Joseph Farrugia recalls Sunday picnics inside the cave before it was fenced off in the 1980s. “We’d eat rabbit stew while grandfather pointed at the ceiling and said, ‘Those grooves are cart ruts from Noah’s Ark.’” Today, local cafés are printing Mesolithic-themed cappuccino art—mammoths in foam—and fishermen have volunteered their boats to ferry scientists daily from Pretty Bay. “It’s our heritage too,” says 72-year-old lampuki netter Ċensu Galea. “My father found a human jawbone here in 1958 and handed it over. Now maybe my grandchildren will see where that man lived.”

Heritage Malta has pledged that 30 % of finds will stay on site in a new micro-museum, the rest touring parishes in a mobile exhibit dubbed “The Travelling Cave.” Schoolchildren are already designing 3-D printed replicas of flint tools, while Gozitan game developers are prototyping a VR experience that lets users spear virtual tuna beneath a starlit Ice Age sky. Economy Minister Silvio Schembri predicts the initiative could add 50,000 visitors annually to the south-east region, injecting €2 million into family-run guesthouses and diving centers.

Yet the dig is not without controversy. Some hunters fear the project will tighten access restrictions on surrounding garigue where quail trapping is a autumn ritual. Others worry about “heritage fatigue” after a decade of temple-centered tourism. “We love our past, but we also need present-day jobs,” says ornithologist and activist Mark Gauci. Heritage Malta responds that 80 % of the project budget is earmarked for Maltese staff, including trainee conservators from MCAST.

Back in the trench, undergraduate Jessica Camilleri lifts a charred carob seed that may push back the island’s botanical calendar by centuries. “Every sample is a WhatsApp message from someone who never dreamed of smartphones,” she laughs, bagging the find. When the final layer is peeled away in 2026, researchers hope to answer why Malta—barren, waterless, and far from the mainland—became a repeat pit-stop for people who had the whole Mediterranean to choose from. Until then, the cave keeps its secrets, and the village keeps its pride.

Conclusion: Whether the team uncovers a burial ground or a prehistoric barbecue pit, the expanded excavation is already stitching prehistoric science into the fabric of modern Birżebbuġa. In a country where history is usually measured in megabytes of temple selfies, the slow scrape of trowels reminds us that Malta’s story begins not with stone giants, but with restless seafarers who saw possibility in an empty island. Their footprints—layered beneath ours—are the original Maltese identity card.