The Greek Crisis: Palaeoanthropology and Archaeology

Heritage Daily.com ^ | August 29, 2012 | Charles t. g. Clarke

[SunkenCiv]

Greece has been in the grip of a financial crisis for the last few years now and Greek heritage sites are hit the worst. There is however, an unseen, less well known crisis and it involves Greek palaeoanthropology -- the study of hominin evolution. It is not so much a crisis as a metaphorical drought of artefacts and fossil evidence, which remains the best way to understand human evolution in Greece.

An understanding of tectonic activity and the ever changing relationship between the Aegean Sea and mainland Greece are crucial to understanding why so little Lower Palaeolithic Hominin material has been discovered to date.

Pleistocene Series -- This is a geologic time, rock series and sedimentary deposits series, part of the Quaternary. Many important events took place in this time span, including the appearance and recession of northern glaciation, the appearance and biogeographic distribution of hominins, and the extinction of land mammals including the Wolly Mammoth, Mastodon, and Cave Lions. Wiki Commons

The Lower Palaeolithic of Europe lasted almost 2.6 million years from 2.6 ma (million years ago) to 300 ka (thousand years ago). The generally accepted paradigm, though disputed, involves the rise of a species of human called Homo sapiens from the Africa continent, a group which left Africa somewhere around 60 ka and 100 ka. A previous human, Homo ergaster originated in Africa about 1.9 ma and later evolved into Homo heidelbergensis, while Homo erectus evolved into Homo heidelbergensis in Europe. This is the current understanding and general overview of hominin evolution in Africa and Europe between 1.9 ma and 300 ka accepting that fossil record is incomplete and this is just one interpretation of many.

[SunkenCiv]

Petralona Skull found in 1959 by local shepherd Fillipos Chatzaridis -- Wiki Commons

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
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[blueunicorn6]

I’m an African-American? That explains why I’m so damn good looking and why I have such a big......heart. You thought I was going to say something else, didn’t you? Potty minds.

[Verginius Rufus]

Some of the online sources say the Petralona cave was discovered in 1959 but the skull was found in 1960.

There seems to be a lot of disagreement over its date. Some early estimates of its date put it in the Neanderthal period but other studies make it much older--200,000 years, 350,000 years, or even older. One theory is that it is a specimen of Homo heidelbergensis.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks VR.

[SunkenCiv]

I wuzzn’t gonna say it.