Abstract
ETHNOLOGY OF MALTA AND Gozo.—In the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (vol. lii, 1922) Mr. L. H. Dudley Buxton publishes an exhaustive essay on the ethnology of Malta and Gozo. The skulls discovered in the course of excavation and examination of the existing population lead to some interesting conclusions. The First Race, the Megalith builders, are certainly akin to the early and present inhabitants of North Africa, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and Spain, all belonging to the Mediterranean races. Their successors, the Second Race, exhibit Armenoid characteristics, and were probably immigrants from the eastern Mediterranean. Their arrival probably occurred towards the end of the Bronze or in the Early Iron Age. Armenoids with an admixture of Mediterranean blood, they probably came to Malta from Carthage. They may have destroyed the previous inhabitants, or they may have pursued methods of peaceful penetration. At any rate, they established themselves firmly in Malta, and all later introduction of foreign blood has failed to raise the variation. In later times there have been local variations, but the differences between Malta and Gozo are not greater than the differences between the general population of Malta and at least one, and possibly more, of the more isolated villages.
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Research Items. Nature 111, 858–859 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/111858a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/111858a0