Jenny and I went to Malta for a short holiday at the end of September, and I made a point of visiting two of the major remaining relatively intact sites of so-called cart ruts, with a view to trying to work out what for and how they were made. For anyone interested I have posted a short film on youtube, in which I argue that they may have been carved as a combined system of water drainage, and aquaponic culture, probably of cucurbit vines (melons, cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins etc) on the otherwise sterile and plant-inhospitable coralline limestone. Such plants need a place for the roots to draw water and nutrients from as they spread out in all directions to photosynthesise and fruit. And of course pumpkins are a great winter vegetable. This is the link to my 15-minute video; [www.youtube.com]
I would be very interested in any constructive comments, especially from others who have puzzled over this phenomenon. I found the Naxxar Gap site, which slopes quite steeply, particularly informative as there are many examples of where one of the ruts runs into and then steeply out of an obvious pond or basin. In flatter areas, as seen at the so-called Clapham Junction site, there may have been less need to scour out ponds, as the deeper and wider of a pair of ruts might do equally well, leaving the other available to carry excess water down to the fields and villages. Clearly these ruts are much older than is credited, as evidenced by one at St Georges Bay entering the sea. And I see from one of Graham’s lectures that there are other areas in Malta where divers can find them in quite deep water. So they must surely predate the end of the Younger Dryas? I argue that the so-called slide car discussed in David Trump’s and Gordon Weston’s books explains best how, (but not why) they were made.
I would be very interested in any constructive comments, especially from others who have puzzled over this phenomenon. I found the Naxxar Gap site, which slopes quite steeply, particularly informative as there are many examples of where one of the ruts runs into and then steeply out of an obvious pond or basin. In flatter areas, as seen at the so-called Clapham Junction site, there may have been less need to scour out ponds, as the deeper and wider of a pair of ruts might do equally well, leaving the other available to carry excess water down to the fields and villages. Clearly these ruts are much older than is credited, as evidenced by one at St Georges Bay entering the sea. And I see from one of Graham’s lectures that there are other areas in Malta where divers can find them in quite deep water. So they must surely predate the end of the Younger Dryas? I argue that the so-called slide car discussed in David Trump’s and Gordon Weston’s books explains best how, (but not why) they were made.