Researchers have discovered the country’s oldest archaeological site, which dates back 700,000 years and is associated with the hominin ancestors of modern humans, deep in an open coal mine in southern Greece.
The find reported Thursday would drag the beginning of Greek paleohistory back by as much as a fourth of 1,000,000 years, albeit more established hominin destinations have been found somewhere else in Europe. Spain has the oldest, dating back more than a million years.
According to a statement from the Culture Ministry, the Greek site was one of five in the Megalopolis region that an international team of experts investigated over the course of five years.
It was discovered to contain the remains of an extinct species of giant deer, elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and macaque monkey, as well as rough stone tools from the Lower Palaeolithic period, which spanned approximately 3.3 million to 300,000 years ago.
“There is an archaeological context where tools and animal remains have been discovered. It’s a crucial and extremely early site… that permits us to move far back, and authoritatively, to the age of the first tools in Greece.”
Archaeologist Nikos Efstratiou, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at Greece’s University of Thessaloniki .
Panagiotis Karkanas of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Eleni Panagopoulou of the Greek Culture Ministry, and Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropology professor at the University of Tübingen in Germany, were in charge of the project.
The antiques are “straightforward apparatuses, similar to sharp stone pieces, having a place in the Lower Paleolithic stone device industry,” the co-chiefs said in remarks messaged to The Related Press.
Researchers standing on the sides of an open coal mine in Megalopolis, Greece’s southernmost city, are depicted in this undated photograph that was provided by the Greek Culture Ministry on June 1, 2023. According to the Culture Ministry, a five-year international project in Megalopolis has discovered the country’s oldest known archaeological site, which dates back approximately 700,000 years, putting Greek archaeology back up to 250,000 years. Credit: Greek Culture Ministry via AP
They suggested that the items might have been made by Homo antecessor, a European hominin species from that time period. It is believed that Homo antecessor was the last common ancestor of modern humans and their extinct Neanderthal relatives, who diverged approximately 800,000 years ago.
The project directors stated, “However, we will not be able to be sure until hominin fossil remains are recovered.” The site is the earliest evidence of a human presence in Greece and extends the country’s archaeological record by up to 250,000 years.
The instruments, which were probably utilized for butchering creatures and handling wood or other plant matter, were made a long time ago; however, the scientists said they were anticipating further investigations to refine the dating.
The three co-directors stated, “We are very excited to be able to report this finding, which demonstrates the great importance of our region for understanding hominin migrations to Europe and for human evolution in general.”
The discovery was “very important” in and of itself, according to archaeologist Nikos Efstratiou, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Thessaloniki in Greece who was not involved in the project. This was in addition to the fact that it represented the country’s oldest known site.
The Greek Culture Ministry provided this undated image on June 1, 2023, which shows the skull of a deer in the sides of an open coal mine in Megalopolis, southern Greece. According to the Culture Ministry, a five-year international project in Megalopolis has discovered the country’s oldest known archaeological site, which dates back approximately 700,000 years, putting Greek archaeology back up to 250,000 years. Credit: Greek Culture Ministry via AP.
“There is an archaeological context in which tools and remains of animals have been found.” It is a significant and very early site that enables us to travel authoritatively back in time to the age of the first tools in Greece.
The oldest Middle Palaeolithic remains discovered in Greece, dating to approximately 280,000 years ago, were found at another site that was investigated in the Megalopolis region of the southern Peloponnese peninsula. This region is home to the enormously later sites of Mycenae, Olympia, and Pylos.
According to the researchers, “it’s one of the oldest sites in Europe that have tools characteristic of the so-called Middle Palaeolithic tool industry, suggesting that Greece may have played a significant role in the (stone) industry developments in Europe.”
Coal has been mined from the Megalopolis Plain for decades to supply a local power plant. It had a shallow lake in the Palaeolithic era.
Fossils have been found in the area for a long time, and huge prehistoric bones found there were linked to Greek myths about a race of giants who killed the gods of Olympus long ago. Megalopolis was mentioned by some ancient writers as the location of a major battle in that supernatural war.
