from the the-grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-sea dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
An international research team led by scientists from McMaster University has unearthed new evidence in Greece proving that the island of Naxos was inhabited by Neanderthals and earlier humans at least 200,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed.
The findings, published today in the journal Science Advances, are based on years of excavations and challenge current thinking about human movement in the region -- long thought to have been inaccessible and uninhabitable to anyone but modern humans. The new evidence is leading researchers to reconsider the routes our early ancestors took as they moved out of Africa into Europe and demonstrates their ability to adapt to new environmental challenges.
[...] "Until recently, this part of the world was seen as irrelevant to early human studies but the results force us to completely rethink the history of the Mediterranean islands," says Tristan Carter, an associate professor of anthropology at McMaster University and lead author on the study. He conducted the work with Dimitris Athanasoulis, head of archaeology at the Cycladic Ephorate of Antiquities within the Greek Ministry of Culture.
While Stone Age hunters are known to have been living on mainland Europe for over 1 million years, the Mediterranean islands were previously believed to be settled only 9,000 years ago, by farmers, the idea being that only modern humans -- Homo sapiens -- were sophisticated enough to build seafaring vessels.
[...] The authors of this paper suggest that the Aegean basin was in fact accessible much earlier than believed. At certain times of the Ice Age the sea was much lower exposing a land route between the continents that would have allowed early prehistoric populations to walk to Stelida, and an alternative migration route connecting Europe and Africa. Researchers believe the area would have been attractive to early humans because of its abundance of raw materials ideal for toolmaking and for its fresh water.
Journal Reference:
Tristan Carter, Daniel A. Contreras, Justin Holcomb, Danica D. Mihailović, Panagiotis Karkanas, Guillaume Guérin, Ninon Taffin, Dimitris Athanasoulis, Christelle Lahaye. Earliest occupation of the Central Aegean (Naxos), Greece: Implications for hominin and Homo sapiens' behavior and dispersals. Science Advances, 2019; 5 (10): eaax0997 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aax0997
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 18 2019, @01:58AM
'Twas the earlier aristarchus.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday October 18 2019, @02:21AM (1 child)
Neanderthal Greeks or Greek Neanderthals?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 18 2019, @06:13AM
The Greeks say, "I don't know, it's all Neanderthal to me."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Friday October 18 2019, @05:00AM (6 children)
This is just nonsense. No one who's well read in the field thinks this. Many of these islands had animals like lions, elephants, and hippos in ancient times. Homo erectus could go anywhere they could.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus_Dwarf_Elephant for example. Note that they went extinct about 11k years ago, and there's long been speculation that humans might have been responsible.
It sounds like an interesting find, but there's no need to oversell it. This is hardly a shocking new idea.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 18 2019, @05:33AM
The historical sciences are pretty dumb in that common sense is not allowed. You need to find some sort of evidence for any claim no matter how tenuous.
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Friday October 18 2019, @06:09AM (4 children)
But aren't hippos and elephants older than homo sapiens? They could have moved to the islands before humans existed.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Friday October 18 2019, @06:56AM (3 children)
That doesn't mean that H.E. existed in Crete, Cyprus, or Malta at that time - but it does make broadly plausible and far from surprising. Particularly as there have been large variations in sea level over that timescale. The easiest time to make the transit would have been the LGM, roughly 20kya. Sea level was something like 150 yards lower than today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum
If you plot that versus current seafloor, these Mediterranean islands are still islands, but they're much closer to the coast. Sicily and Malta might have been a single island, with many miles of low lying swamp land between the bits that we see today. Crete would have been a bit larger, but more importantly the mainland would have reached much closer to its shores as well. That bit where today we have the corner of Turkey and Syria on the coast? That coast would have reached many miles further into what's now sea, bringing Cyprus in to half or less the current distance.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 18 2019, @01:34PM
It was also 11 Rankine colder during the last LGM.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 18 2019, @02:56PM (1 child)
Knowing that, and understanding it, are two different things. Yes, I know the sea level has gone up and down. But, reading something like this story, and trying to place the sea levels at the time is a bit confusing. And, it's usually too much trouble trying to look it up - especially as there doesn't seem to be some central clearing house on sea level fluctuations over time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Friday October 18 2019, @06:00PM
Speaking of hominids settling islands, the island of Britain is a good example in that it's been more thoroughly excavated than many. And humans have settled that island, flourished for a time, then died out completely due to climate change at least 8 or 9 times now. Modern humans being only the last in a long line.
https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/colonising-britain-one-million-years-of-our-human-story.htm
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?