Sites from the earliest known phases of Maltese prehistory often consist of scatters of sherds for the Għar Dalam and Skorba phases (6000–4800 BCE), and tomb contexts for the Żebbuġ phase (3800–3600 BCE). Neolithic studies are, therefore, heavily reliant on the study of pottery. Although traditional typological and seriation-based analyses of the pottery record have substantially enhanced our knowledge of Early Neolithic Malta, there is a growing appreciation of the need to go beyond these approaches to gain new insights. This study reviews the accessible literature on fabric studies on assemblages found in the Maltese Islands, presenting the state of knowledge for the pottery of the Għar Dalam, Skorba (Early Neolithic), and Żebbuġ (Late Neolithic) phases. Microphotographs of pottery wares were selected from a compilation produced for an ongoing project (the MaltaPot project) to illustrate the descriptions found in the literature. The advances made by archaeologists in studying the Maltese Neolithic pottery are reviewed, and suggestions for building on them are proposed, as archaeometric and petrographic techniques have not been applied systematically to Neolithic pottery from Malta.

中文翻译：

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马耳他神庙前新石器时代陶器回顾

马耳他史前已知最早阶段的遗址通常由散落的加尔达拉姆和斯科巴阶段（公元前 6000-4800 年）的碎片以及热布布阶段（公元前 3800-3600 年）的墓葬环境组成。因此，新石器时代的研究在很大程度上依赖于陶器的研究。尽管对陶器记录的传统类型学和系列化分析极大地增强了我们对新石器时代早期马耳他的了解，但人们越来越认识到需要超越这些方法来获得新的见解。本研究回顾了有关马耳他群岛发现的组合物织物研究的现有文献，介绍了加尔达拉姆、斯科巴（新石器时代早期）和热布布（新石器时代晚期）阶段陶器的知识状况。陶器的显微照片选自为正在进行的项目（MaltaPot 项目）制作的汇编，以说明文献中的描述。由于考古学和岩相学技术尚未系统地应用于马耳他新石器时代陶器，本文回顾了考古学家在研究马耳他新石器时代陶器方面取得的进展，并提出了在此基础上进一步发展的建议。