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METAGEUM '07
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Conference presentation: Neolithic Religion in Malta I
Conference presentation: Neolithic Religion in Malta II
Book now for whole or part of the Metageum event.
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At Metageum '07: Neolithic religions in Malta
Dr Malone will give illustrated presentations of the Neolithic religion of Malta, based on her detailed studies of archaeological remains found in both overground and underground temples. For the first time, she has made extensive use of the spatial context in which these artefacts and skeletal remains were found. Drawing on the massive computerised database of recent findings in the underground temple of the Brochtorff Circle at Xaghra, (the Gozo Project) and a painstaking re-examination of Professor Sir Themistocles Zammit's handwritten notes on his excavation of the Hypogeum at Hal Saflieni (1905-1911) and the temple complex at Tarxien (1915-1919).
About Caroline Malone
Dr Caroline Malone is Senior Tutor and Fellow, and Director of Studies in Archaeology and Anthropology (see www.arch.cam.ac.uk), at Hughes Hall (www.hughes.cam.ac.uk), in Cambridge University (www.cam.ac.uk). She has an MA in Archaeology and Anthropology, and a PhD in Archaeology, both from Cambridge University. Formerly, she was editor of the journal Antiquity (antiquity.ac.uk) and Keeper of the Department of Prehistory and Early Europe at the British Museum (www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk). She began her career as curator at the Alexander Keillor Museum at Avebury (www.english-heritage.org.uk). She has been Senior Tutor at Hughes Hall since 2003.
Research interests include fieldwork in peninsular Italy (since 1983), Malta (since 1987), and Troina in Sicily (since 1997), and currently in Britain. Specific topics: archaeological theory and practice; Neolithic and Copper Age societies of Britain, Europe, Mediterranean, and Italy; island societies and island archaeology; landscape and settlement archaeology: cultural resource management: artefacts and technology: fieldwork and survey.
Dr Malone has played a pivotal role in two of the most exciting projects in Maltese prehistoric archaeology: the Brochtorff excavations, and the Templeton inquiry into spiritual creativity in Prehistoric Malta (see below).
Dr Malone's personal web page at Cambridge University's Department of Archaeology's web site is www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~catm20.
The Brochtorff Excavations
Dr Malone was one of the directors of the Gozo Project, the excavation and subsequent analysis of the Brochtorff Circle. The Gozo project has been the biggest and most important archaeological study of the Neolithic temples of Malta, which are the oldest megalithic structures in the world. The final report on this project will be published this year (see Mortuary ritual in Prehistoric Malta, below). Other directors of the project were: Dr Simon Stoddart (University of Cambridge), Professor Anthony Bonanno (University of Malta), the late Dr. Tancred Gouder (sometime director of the National Museum of Malta), Mr Anthony Pace (Superintendent of Cultural Heritage), and Dr David Trump (Cambridge).
[See summary page on this site: Gozo Project, and the official web site: www.arch.cam.ac.uk/projects/gozo.]
Explorations into the conditions of spiritual creativity in Prehistoric Malta
This was a project sponsored by the Cambridge Templeton Consortium (www.cambridge-templeton-consortium.org), which is funded by The Templeton Foundation (www.templeton.org), and carried out during 2006. Dr Malone was the principal investigator, with team members Dr Michael Anderson, Mr Steven Ashley (Norwich), Dr Michael Anderson, Mr Steven Ashley (Norwich), David Barrowclough, Suzannah De Pasquale (Heritage Malta), and Dr Simon Stoddart (Cambridge). Official web site: www.arch.cam.ac.uk/templeton.
From about 3600 BC, it seems that a dramatic religious change led to the construction of some of the earliest stone monuments of the world, apparently in response to changed attitudes of belief in life and death. In this project, these innovative temple structures have been restudied in the light of modern anthropological theory. Additionally, modern fieldwork has provided new knowledge of the underground mortuary structures, greatly enhancing a complementary understanding of attitudes to the afterlife. Key questions posed in this project were: What precisely were the changes in the prehistoric art of the period? and How were these elements of art inserted in the liturgical space of life (temples) and death (mortuary structures)? To answer them, there was a need for a precisely observed catalogue of material set within an equally precisely observed architectural space together with wider comparative analysis of the Maltese context.
The project culminated in the conference Cult in Context: Spiritual Creativity in Prehistoric Malta, 7th-9th December 2006 (www.arch.cam.ac.uk/cult). This conference engaged a range of archaeological and anthropological research in discussions aimed towards the understanding of prehistoric religion and spiritual activity. Presentations included recent research from prehistoric Malta, prehistoric Europe and anthropology. Malta formed a focus for this conference. The proceedings of this conference will be published in 2007 (see Cult in Context below).
Published books (and chapters of books)
[For a full bibliography, please see: www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~catm20/publications.html.]
Cult in Context (2007, in press), edited by D. Barrowclough and Caroline Malone, to be published by Oxbow Books, Oxford.
This is the edited proceedings of the conference Cult in Context: Comparative Approaches to Prehistoric and Ethnographic Religious Practices (Cambridge, 7th-9th December 2006). The list of papers can be seen on the conference web site: www.arch.cam.ac.uk/cult/schedule.html.
Mortuary Ritual in Prehistoric Malta. The Brochtorff Circle excavations (1987-1994) (2007, in press), edited by Caroline Malone, Simon Stoddart, David Trump, Anthony Bonanno, and Anthony Pace, to be published by the The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in the University of Cambridge.
The Death Cults of Prehistoric Malta (2005), by Caroline Malone, Anthony Bonanno, Tancred Gouder, Simon Stoddart, and David Trump, in: 'Mysteries of the Ancient Ones', Scientific American Special Edition vol. 15(1), pp. 14-23 (February 2005). (See www.sciamdigital.com to purchase and download this special edition.)
Prehistory (January 2005), by Caroline Malone and Simon Stoddart, 320 pages, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0297847368. [Buy this book at 
.]
Towards an island of mind? (2004), by Caroline Malone and Simon Stoddart, pp. 93-102 in: 'Explaining social change: Studies in honour of Colin Renfrew', edited by J. Cherry, C. Scarre, and S. Shennan, 240 pp, McDonald Institute, Cambridge, ISBN 978-1902937236. [Buy this book at .]
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Over the past thirty years, social archaeology has become one of the central fields of archaeological research, placing human societies at the heart of our understanding of the human past. Colin Renfrew has been a key champion of social archaeology, and the present volume brings together a series of papers on the occasion of his retirement. They have been written by colleagues and former students, and touch upon many of the themes that he himself has studied and about which he has written so persuasively and engagingly: the development of the human mind, trade and exchange, social change, chiefdoms and states, and the archaeology of island societies. These studies focus not on earlier work, however, but reveal the new directions that have developed in recent years, bringing the study of social archaeology firmly into the twenty-first century.
Megaliths from Antiquity (2003), edited by Timothy Darvill and Caroline Malone, 386p, published by Antiquity papers, ISBN 978-095397622X. [Buy this book at .]
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The third volume of Antiquity Papers explores the ever intriguing theme of British and European megaliths. Thirty-six papers examine four principal themes in megalithic studies. Concerning the earliest monuments, the great tombs and dolmens, papers range from Daniel's early studies of British dolmens to more recent debates. The perennial interest in Stonehenge and Avebury has figured prominently in Antiquity and is brought fully up to date. The presence of timber and earth circles as precursors or alternatives to megalithic structures show further variety in ancient monument building. The final section, Beyond the Megaliths, demonstrates the abiding interest in interpretations of function and meaning in the ancient stones, through studies of ancient engineering, archaeoastronomy and sensory archaeology. These reprinted classic papers draw on the 75-year tradition of the journal Antiquity.
Stonehenge (Digging for the Past) (June 2002), by Caroline Malone, Kay Almere Read, and Nancy Stone Bernard, 48 pages, published by Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0195143140. [Buy this book at .]
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Who built Stonehenge, and why is it one of the great mysteries of the prehistoric world? Here, Caroline Malone and Nancy Stone Bernard explore the myths, legends, and lies that have surrounded the ancient megaliths since the 12th century, when people believed that the sorcerer Merlin magically transported the stones to England. Readers learn why the druid myth still persists, how the structure was possibly constructed, and why the site was abandoned centuries after it was built. Including numerous sidebars, photographs, and diagrams on the archaeological history of the site and an engaging interview with archaeologist Caroline Malone, Stonehenge captures the imagination and curiosity of every budding archaeologist.
Neolithic Britain And Ireland (October 2001), by Caroline Malone, 288 pages, 183 b/w figs, published by NPI Media Group, ISBN-13 978-0752414423. [Buy this book at .]
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An up-to date account focusing on describing the physical remains in the landscape. This is a great new study on Neolithic Britain and Ireland that combines discussions of key concepts in the Neolithic `Revolution' with details on individual regions, sites and artefacts. Caroline Malone addresses what we know about the Neolithic and how we have reached these interpretations, including changes in the landscape, and the ways in which it was utilised, settlement, the economy, burials, monument-building and artefact production. A well illustrated, well written book geared towards students embarking on prehistoric studies that is packed full of information and illustrations including lists of sites and museums to visit, and a useful bibliography. Highly recommended.
The articulation of disarticulation. preliminary thoughts on the Brochtorff Circle at Xaghra (Gozo) (1999), by Simon Stoddart, M. Wysocki, G. Burgess, G. Barber, C. Duhig, Caroline Malone, and G. Mann, pp. 94-105 in: 'The loved body's corruption: Archaeological contributions to the study of human mortality' edited by J. Downes and A. Pollard, published by Cruithne Press, Glasgow, ISBN 1873448066. [Buy this book at .]
God of Goddess? The Temple Art of Ancient Malta (May 1999) by Caroline Malone, pp 148-163 in: 'Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and Evidence', edited by L. Goodison and C. Morris, jointly published by British Museum Press, London, and the University of Wisconsin Press, 224 pp, ISBN 978-0299163204. [Buy this book at .]
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The nurturing Earth Goddess, the Great Mother worshipped at the dawn of civilizationhistorical fact or consoling fiction? While Goddess mythologies proliferate and the public devours books by artists, psychotherapists, and enthusiastic amateurs, it is remarkable that those in the field of prehistory have remained largely silent. Did Goddess worship really exist? What actually remains from the earliest cultures, and what can it tell us? What can we learn about the early stages of human religion from the study of prehistoric carvings, pictures, pottery, figurines, and temples? In Ancient Goddesses, historians and archaeologists write accessibly about this intriguing and controversial topic for the first time. Considering a number of significant early civilizations - Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt; 'Old Europe'; Early North West Europe; 'Celtic' civilization; the Prehistoric Aegean; Malta; the Ancient Near East; Old Testament Israel; Çatalhöyük; and Archaic Greece - these experts review the most recent evidence so that readers can make up their own minds.
The Conditions of Creativity for Prehistoric Maltese Art (1998), by Caroline Malone, and Simon Stoddart, pp 241-259 in 'Creativity in Human Evolution and Prehistory' edited by Steven Mithen, published by Routledge, ISBN 978-0415160964. [Buy this book at .]
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This book examines how our understanding of human creativity can be extended by exploring this phenomenon during human evolution and prehistory.
Territory, Time and State: The Archaeological Development of the Gubbio Basin (October 1994), edited by Simon Stoddart and Caroline Malone, 244 pp with 62 line diagrams, 9 half-tones, 21 tables and 36 maps, published by Cambridge University Press, ISBN: 978-0521355681. [Buy this book at .]
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A study of long-term archaeological history in the remote and beautiful upland valley of Gubbio within the Umbrian Apennines of Italy. The aim of the work is well defined by the natural constraints of this mountainous region. The authors have developed a multi-disciplinary approach to study the human and physical characteristics of the valley from the paleolithic to the medieval period. They integrate the analysis of a unique text (the Iguvine Tables) with excavation, field survey and environmental reconstruction to provide a synthesis of current knowledge. They break boundaries of time and tradition which are normally compartmentalised between different scholars. Although the linkage is sometimes controversial, it is always stimulating. The book has two major focuses: the first is on the Bronze Age landscape where spectacular sites and finds have contributed very significantly to our knowledge of pre-state Italy; and the second is on the identity and character of the early city state of Gubbio and its incorporation into the Roman world. Includes: Introduction - Caroline Malone, James McVicar, & Simon Stoddart; The transition to Agriculture - Caroline Malone & Jenny Harding; Site Relationships - Caroline Malone & Simon Stoddart; The Regional Setting - Caroline Malone & Simon Stoddart; Colonisation, Formation and Incorporation - Caroline Malone & Simon Stoddart.
Malta in the Dawn of Civilisation (1995), by Caroline Malone and Simon Stoddart: catalogue for an exhibition of the same name held for the opening of the new Maltese High Commission in Piccadilly, London; published by the Ministry of Justice and the Arts, Malta.
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The exhibits included a display of a virtual-reality reconstruction of Brochtorff Circle, created by th INSITE project team at the University of Bristol. I am not aware of an ISBN, and the catalogue was probably not made available outside the exhibition. The only report is that from Bristol: University of Bristol Department of Archaeology, VLP Repor No. 3, June 1995, written by Martin Belcher (www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~alan/Arch/INSITE).
The Prehistoric Monuments of Avebury (January 1994), by Caroline Malone, 56 pp, published by English Heritage, ISBN-13 978-1850742531. [Buy this book at .]
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Avebury stone circle is over 4000 years old. It is one of the largest prehistoric henges in Britain, and has been designated as a World Heritage Site. This is an account of Avebury's ceremonial sites, ancient avenues and barrows.
Avebury (reprinted May 1989), by Caroline Malone, 154 pages, published by B.T. Batsford Ltd for Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission, later English Heritage, ISBN 978-0713459609. [Buy this book at .]
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This is an illustrated survey of one of Britain's most important archaeological sites. As well as the Avebury stone circle, it includes other important neolithic monuments: the Great Henge; East and West Kennet Long Barrows; the Sanctuary and the Avenue; and Silbury Hill. Throughout, the author's emphasis is on the landscape of the area which gave rise to these vast ceremonial monuments, and on the lifestyle and economy of the farming communities which emerged about 4000 BC and flourished until the birth of the Bronze Age over 2000 years later. In particular she introduces the reader to the elusive world of neolithic beliefs and ritual.