Scientists Find Early Humans Moved through Mediterranean Earlier than Believed
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. MihailoviA, Panagiotis Karkanas, Guillaume Gui(C)rin, 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
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