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 1. Archaeology


OLDEST EVIDENCE OF HUMANS IN GREECE IS 700,000 YEARS OLD, A QUARTER OF A MILLION
YEARS OLDER THAN PREVIOUS RECORD

News
By Kristina Killgrove
published June 8, 2023

A prehistoric site in Greece pushes back the earliest known hominin presence in
the region by up to 250,000 years.





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Stone tools crafted by hominins from and Choremi 7 in Greece. (Image credit:
Copyright YPPOA (Greek Culture Ministry))


Several prehistoric sites in Greece reveal that our human ancestors hunted
hippos and elephants between 280,000 and 700,000 years ago. The oldest site
pushes back the earliest known hominin presence in the region by up to 250,000
years.



It's not clear which ancient hominin (a term that includes humans and our
ancestors) used the site, but researchers suspect it was archaic Homo sapiens.



Sitting about 124 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Athens, the Megalopolis
Basin in Arcadia hosts one of the largest lignite mines in Greece. Although
archaeologists have known for decades that the site harbored ancient fossils,
little targeted excavation had been carried out. Recently, though, the Hellenic
Ministry of Culture & Sports and the American School of Classical Studies at
Athens launched a five-year excavation to better understand the context of the
Megalopolis sites. 

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Mining activity revealed five new sites in the basin, which "exposed the
fossil-bearing sediments to a much greater depth, thus revealing older remains,"
Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany
and co-project lead, told Live Science in an email. 

Related: Back to the Stone Age: 17 key milestones in Paleolithic life



The most recent site, Choremi 7, dating to around 280,000 years ago, yielded
stone tools as well as deer bones with evidence of cut marks. Tripotamos 4, at
400,000 years old, had a large concentration of stone tools and evidence of new
methods of stone working compared to older sites. These sites are important for
understanding the technological development of the Lower Paleolithic period (3.3
million to 300,000 years ago), according to a statement from the Hellenic
Ministry of Culture & Sport.

At a site called Marathousa 2 dating to 450,000 years ago, the researchers
discovered evidence that ancient human relatives were killing and presumably
eating hippopotamuses, as part of a hippo skeleton had stone tool cut marks on
it. A nearby site, Marathousa 1, shows evidence of elephant butchering. 


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An ancient deer skull, as found at Kyparissia site 4. (Image credit: Copyright
YPPOA (Greek Culture Ministry))

"The cut marked hippopotamus bones from Marathousa 2, which were also found
together with a lithic artifact, are the only such findings from the Middle
Pleistocene of southeast Europe," Harvati said. The team found that megafaunal
exploitation was likely common during this time period.



A surface survey showing the artificial levels of the Megalopolis lignite mine
in Greece. (Image credit: Copyright YPPOA (Greek Culture Ministry))

About 230 feet (70 meters) below the surface, the team discovered the site of
Kyparissia 4. Dating to 700,000 years ago, it is the oldest archaeological site
from the Lower Palaeolithic era in Greece. The researchers found numerous stone
tools as well as remains of extinct species of giant deer, hippo, rhino,
elephant and macaque.  When glaciers covered much of Europe during a major ice
age between 500,000 and 300,000 years ago, this region would have been ice-free.



The sites Kyparissia 3 and 4 in the stratigraphic sequence of the lignites.
(Image credit: Copyright YPPOA (Greek Culture Ministry))

"Our research reconstructing the paleoenvironment of the basin has indicated
that it would have functioned as a refugium during Ice Age conditions," Harvati
said, "allowing animal and plant populations — but also hominin groups — to
survive during harsh glacial times when they would have disappeared from more
northern parts of the European continent."

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The "outstanding and highly unusual preservation conditions" in the Megalopolis
basin mean that the team is recovering not only stone tools and fossils but also
remains of small animals, wood, plant remains and even insects, according to
Harvati. The basin has provided evidence that spans almost the entire middle
Pleistocene, an important discovery considering southeastern Europe is
relatively unexplored for this time period.

"The Megalopolis basin therefore provides a crucial piece of the puzzle of human
evolution in Europe," Harvati said.


Kristina Killgrove
Social Links Navigation
Live Science contributor

Kristina Killgrove is an archaeologist with specialties in ancient human
skeletons and science communication. Her academic research has appeared in
numerous scientific journals, while her news stories and essays have been
published in venues such as Forbes, Mental Floss and Smithsonian. Kristina
earned a doctorate in anthropology from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill and also holds bachelor's and master's degrees in classical
archaeology.



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