Probably the Maltese Islands were part of a huge area between Southern Europe and North Africa and this area was full of forests, mountains and rivers. In fact scientific studies of the Mediterranean seabed show that the foundations of the Maltese Islands link with Tunes and Sicily.

The fossil remains of elephants, reindeers, bears and hippopotamus found at GHAR DALAM, give us ample EVIDENCE that Malta was not always an island as it is now. This is because such big animals could not have lived on such a small isolated island like Malta where there was never enough water and food for such large animals.

We know this NOT through writings (did not exist at the time) but through archaeology. Archaeologists search for ancient remains (like bones, fossils and signs on stones) by digging and even opening graves.
The period or age before men started writing or carving out signs in order to communicate is called Pre-History, meaning the period before History began to be written down.

Stone Age people (farmers and hunters) came to Malta from Sicily, which is 80km away. The sea voyage on primitive rafts (called cattra in Maltese) would have been a long and very dangerous voyage, (travelling in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea) very different from today's comfortable crossing by ship or catamaran. We have evidence (human bones), which suggests that the first settlers that succeeded to arrive in Malta, first lived in caves and later in huts.