A holistic approach to the temple builder society in Malta Research objectives Version 1.0, 2017-02-10 Ronald Poell,
[email protected]
Introduction The purpose of this document is to provide the general context and objectives of the research topics that eventually will lead to a coherent and consistent perception of the temple builder society of Malta in the period between 3600 BC and 2500 BC. Given the history of the excavations, which started some 150 years ago, when even the term archaeology didn't exist, a lot of information is definitely lost: the attention focus of the “archaeologist” has shifted over time and it is only in the past two decades that “modern” archaeology techniques are applied to these neolithic remains. This is a fact of history and cannot be changed and we will have to deal with that. The purpose of archaeology is to ultimately provide a view of the life of past populations. Quite naturally this is cumulative and on a fragmentary basis as research is most often focused on a particular subject. Furthermore many topics haven't been studied and raw excavation results or other research results have not been published or are very difficult to access. Various reasons can be at the origin of this: financial, absence of source material, absence of precise archaeological context of artefacts, lack of interest etc. This project wants to improve the overall knowledge about this part of the Maltese history and make available to everyone.
Objectives This project has three global objectives. In the first place it wants to be a federating resource pool for all published and not-yet published research related to the temple builder society. The second objective is, through interdisciplinary research, fill in the gaps in our knowledge and provide, possibly alternate, views on every single aspect of the live of these people and history of this society. The final objective, but certainly not the less important, is to tell the story of these people in such a way that the greater public, Maltese and foreign, can feel what it was to be living here in Malta 5000 years ago.
Resource pool The resource pool will eventually be an exhaustive annotated bibliography covering all scientific disciplines of interest. It will be subdivided in several sections in order to keep the size manageable.
Research The list of research topics that eventually will be covered is long. It is also evident that not all topics will have the same level of confidence of the potential interpretations based on observable facts. We are targetting subjects related to – the organization and cooperation of people at the level of a building, a complex and a cluster in the day-to-day life of the young, the adult and the old people like (e.g. water and food collecting and growing, cooking and eating, sleeping, daily activity throughout the year, common medicine) – the physical organisation of a complex (e.g. passage closing techniques, orientation of the buildings, activity area's, surface water flow, waste disposal area's, circulation paths, construction organization and -history of the buildings) – potential specialization of buildings, complexes or clusters and the implication of it on the society as a whole (based on unbalanced natural resources, inter-cluster exchanges of goods, geographic concentration of skills, knowledge transfer between clusters and over time, overseas exchanges) – viability requirements from a genetic- and population perspective of the humans, live stock and wild life (including e.g. population size, required inter-cluster exchanges and over-seas exchanges) – evolution of the environment and potential impact on the society as a whole (e.g. vegetation, soil erosion, climate) – cult and special activities related to their belief-system – origin, evolution and decline of the society – ... This list is not exhaustive but gives an indication of the required variety for a holistic view. The research techniques applied will be bibliography study, re-examination of existing artefacts, new analysis, experimental archaeology, etc.
Story The forms the story objective will take have still to be defined and is dependant on the skills of the collaborators, the financial means and the level of detail that will be acquired over time. Nor mutually exclusive nor limited to, the story can take to form of a book, a virtual reality environment or an interactive 3D game.
Collaboration and funding All those who would like to contribute in one way or another to this part of the Maltese history are invited to join the project on Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/project/A-holistic-approach-to-the-temple-builder-society-in-Malta We are also looking for funding to support any or all of the three objectives. A bitcoin address has already be opened for this purpose: 1LDuLDeuvbbjj8tprt7M7ThGYbaJV4BycL
