If I had to come in possession of a time machine, I know exactly where I’d want to go: Xagħra, 6,000 years ago. The island was then inhabited by the most open-minded people ever to grace our lands. They were tall, handsome, healthy and supremely intelligent until… they were replaced by shorter, uglier and unhealthy versions of themselves.
What had happened to the most graceful and egalitarian society that ever lived on the islands? Why did it vanish into thin air? It’s been a mystery. But now maybe, just maybe, archaeologists and scientists have cracked the code of this enigma and the answer seems to lie in the DNA.
But let’s put that aside for now and talk about the very first Maltese men and women who built Ġgantija, that wondrous, ingenious piece of architecture way older than the Egyptian pyramids. If there were international awards for the best architectural buildings, we’d have swept the board. They had arrived by boat, probably from Sicily or from North Africa or from both. Some were dark-skinned, others were pale but no one cared about the colour of the skin at the time. In fact, no one cared about appearances. It was irrelevant whether you had a pair of boobs or a dick.
No one pointed at women and said: “Your job is to do housework and raise the children, if not, you’re a waste of space on earth” as we read recently in the Times of Malta. No gender tried to be more powerful than the other. Children were raised by the community, the wisdom of the elders was sought and everyone had to contribute equally for the well-being of the community, whatever the age.
We know all this from long years of painstaking archaeological excavations and subsequent research from the prehistoric site in Xagħra Circle in Gozo. Studies on the skeletons and remains of these very early people reveal that they were healthy: their diets were a balance of meat, herbs and vegetables and the only sugar they consumed was in the form of figs or wild honey.
They drank natural spring water with natural fluoride, so their teeth were even, straight and pearl-white. They took pride in grooming, plaited their hair in different styles and wore different kinds of jewellery. These ancient Maltese were not isolated on a forsaken island, rather they were in constant touch with the outside world, kept up with the trends and often imported stuff not found here, such as polished rock. They interacted with people living outside our shores and, regularly, new blood was injected into the community.
The golden era dwindled into nothing. And we have since never been able to reach those heights again- Kristina Chetcuti
They raised animals and consumed them communally, so nothing would go to waste; they wove clothes from sheep’s wool; they made furniture from wood and were extremely artistic and deft with sculpting. They studied the medicinal value of herbs and even had treatments for arthritis.
And, because of this harmonious lifestyle, together, they were able to build one of the true wonders of the world: the Ġgantija temples in Xagħra.
But this is where I have to stop ‘being positive’, I’m afraid. Because, by a thousand years later, we had gone from a flourishing, outward-looking society to a navel-gazing one. Some bright bulb must have convinced the community that they “had to wake up and smell the coffee” and stop letting those foreign seafarers land on our shores and, shock horror, settle here.
He must have been rather convincing in his “Ġgantija l-ewwel u qabel kollox” and probably promised that if they did that, the community would live through “l-aqwa żmien”. Who knows? What we definitely know is that according to scientists from Dublin’s Trinity College and other universities, by the end of the neolithic period, the Maltese DNA had changed.
Studies on genomes from the Neolithic human remains of the Xagħra stone circle cave burials discovered in Gozo have found out that the Maltese people had shrunk in stature, were suffering from food scarcity, their pottery and jewellery trends had gotten stale and there was a lot of inbreeding. Everyone knew each other and everyone was somehow related to each other, which meant a feast of genetic diseases.
Because no one visited, we soon thought that we were the centre of the world and, as happens, then it became a race for the survival of the fittest and the concept of common good was thrown out of their hut windows. Equality and harmony were fobbed off and the community was never again able to create the marvellous wonders it once did. Eventually, the golden era dwindled into nothing. And we have since never been able to reach those heights again.
There’s much to ruminate on. I’m sure if I had to jump on that time machine I’d be completely in love with the people we once were. But I suppose the main take-home lesson is that our islands are not the centre of the world. The moment all of us believe that is the moment of our downfall. So, I suppose the best thing we can do is encourage our children to travel as much as possible outside our shores, if for nothing, to ensure a better, healthier DNA.