Queen's leads multi-million euro study to uncover Malta's past

A new €2.49m research study, led by Queen's University Belfast, is to help uncover Malta's prehistoric past.
The five year programme will examine the environmental and cultural background of prehistoric Malta. It will also develop strategies to ensure long-term conservation of vulnerable heritage in all island settings.

Nineteen senior scholars from Queen's, Cambridge University, the University of Malta, the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and Heritage Malta are involved in the project.

The project will allow researchers to reconstruct the changing ecology at different periods in Malta's history by using ancient pollens and extracted tiny invertebrates including snails and insects. The analysis of these and other environmental and archaeological materials will take place in Queen's specialist 14CHRONO lab....

...  The full title of the project is Fragility and Sustainability in restricted island environments: Adaptation, Culture Change and Collapse in prehistory (FRAGSUS). The Framework 7 European Research Council grant for the work is one of only 50 awarded this year for research in the humanities and social sciences. It is the first ERC grant to include Malta. [...] eurekalert.org/