Researchers have discovered that hunter-gatherers were crossing at least 100 kilometres of open water to reach the Mediterranean island of Malta 8,500 years ago, around a thousand years before the arrival of the first farmers. The study documents the oldest true long-distance seafaring in the Mediterranean before the invention of boats with sails. This is an extraordinary achievement for hunter-gatherers, who likely used simple dugout canoes – boats made from a single log. Until now, humans were not thought to have been able to reach or inhabit these remote islands and similar isolated environments prior to the dawn of agriculture, and the technological shift that accompanied this transition. The results have been published under the title ‘Hunter-gatherer sea voyages extended to remotest Mediterranean islands’ in Nature.
In the Latnija cave in northern Mellieha region of Malta, the researchers found traces of hunter-gatherers in the form of stone tools, hearths and cooked food waste, including Red Deer, long thought to have gone extinct by this point in time. In addition, the research group discovered clear evidence that marine animals were eaten at the time. “We found remains of seals, various fish and thousands of edible sea snails, crabs and sea urchins, all of which had undoubtedly been cooked,” says Dr James Blinkhorn from the University of Liverpool and the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology (MPI-GEA) in Jena, one of the authors of the study. The findings prove that hunter-gatherers inhabited the area long before the first farmers.
“Taking into account the currents on the sea surface and the prevailing winds, as well as the use of landmarks, stars and other orientation practices, a crossing of around 100 km at a speed of around 4 km per hour is likely,” explains Professor Dr Nicholas Vella from the University of Malta, co-investigator of the study. “Even on the longest day of the year, these seafarers would have spent several hours of darkness in open water.”
The study was conducted by a scientific consortium led by Professor Dr Eleanor Scerri from the MPI-GEA and the University of Malta. “Given the challenging crossing and the presumably very low population density, even on the surrounding mainland, one wonders what motivated people to make these long sea voyages,” says Professor Dr Andreas Maier from the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Cologne, who was also involved in the study.
These discoveries raise questions about the extinction of endemic animals on Malta and other small and remote Mediterranean islands, as well as whether there may have been connections between distant Mesolithic communities. “The results add a thousand years to Maltese prehistory and force a re-evaluation of the seafaring abilities of Europe’s last hunter-gatherers, their connections and impact on the ecosystem,” adds Professor 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.
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Publication:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08780-y