john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Crete

  • Crete again, again, again

    Wed, 2010-09-01 11:00 -- John Hawks

    Julien Riel-Salvatore has written more about the supposed Middle Paleolithic-age stone tools from Crete: "The final (?) word on those handaxes from Crete".

    First, on the basis of the drawing of the handaxes, these implements do appear to be human-made. Second, they are not isolated occurrences: the authors identified nine localities where these quartz tools were found, only three of which also yielded Mesolithic tools. This leaves open the possibility that the 'Paleolithic' sites represent task-specific components of the Mesolithic toolkit on Crete, but this is unlikely based on the association of handaxes with some of the terrace deposits described in the quote above. Third, as the authors indicate, this was not a case of a H. heidelbergensis (or a couple of them) washing onto Crete: the fact that nine sites (defined by the presence of a minimum of 20 stone tools) were found in a relatively small area indicates a somewhat sustained human presence on the southern coast of Crete.

    The comments have generated a lively discussion of the possibility that these are eoliths -- flaked by natural processes -- and how one would tell.

    Tags: 
    Europe
    Crete
    Middle Paleolithic

  • Crete again

    Tue, 2010-02-16 09:21 -- John Hawks

    I wrote about Crete twice last month ("Crete: Pleistocene port of call?", "More tools from Crete"). Now John Noble Wilford writes about Strasser and Panagopoulou's work: "On Crete, New Evidence of Very Ancient Mariners". The article reviews the finds, and then gives space to a bunch of speculations.

    The exposed uplifted layers represent the sequence of geologic periods that have been well studied and dated, in some cases correlated to established dates of glacial and interglacial periods of the most recent ice age. In addition, the team analyzed the layer bearing the tools and determined that the soil had been on the surface 130,000 to 190,000 years ago.

    Dr. Runnels said he considered this a minimum age for the tools themselves. They include not only quartz hand axes, but also cleavers and scrapers, all of which are in the Acheulean style. The tools could have been made millenniums before they became, as it were, frozen in time in the Cretan cliffs, the archaeologists said.

    Dr. Runnels suggested that the tools could be at least twice as old as the geologic layers. Dr. Strasser said they could be as much as 700,000 years old. Further explorations are planned this summer.

    Ancient artifacts may be exposed to the elements once again and then re-incorporated into more recent sedimentary contexts, a process called "reworking". It happens. But it's a stretch, unless there is some independent evidence that the tools and surrounding rocks bear signs of battering from water transport or other contextual evidence of reworking.

    Going out and saying that the tools could be "as much as 700,000 years old" is just overreaching -- it's like they're trying to say this is comparable to the "earliest" evidence of watercraft. And you really have to stretch the dates to get there: Flores was apparently inhabited by 800,000 years ago.

    At the end:

    But archaeologists and experts on early nautical history said the discovery appeared to show that these surprisingly ancient mariners had craft sturdier and more reliable than rafts. They also must have had the cognitive ability to conceive and carry out repeated water crossing over great distances in order to establish sustainable populations producing an abundance of stone artifacts.

    Maybe. Maybe not. What evidence is there that the crossings were "repeated"? Imagine what would serve...finding Crete-derived rocks in a mainland site would do it, or vice-versa. Any evidence of transport. I don't imagine we'll find any earlier human-introduced fauna, and a human-induced extinction might result from a single invasion, not a "sustained" record of multiple crossings.

    I pointed to one such faunal turnover in my last Crete post, which would point to a human invasion in the mid-Middle Pleistocene. Parallel technical change with Greece or North Africa after this time would show multiple contacts -- but such evidence would suppose a long archaeological record that we don't yet have.

    I just don't think it helps to speculate so freely. Sure, we might find things that surprise us. But the actual facts are surprising enough to justify funding much more work.

    Tags: 
    Middle Pleistocene
    Crete
    Middle Paleolithic
    Europe

  • More tools from Crete

    Sat, 2010-01-16 00:11 -- John Hawks

    After last weekend's post about Thomas Strasser's work on Crete ("Crete: Pleistocene port of call?"), I've heard from a reader who forwarded some earlier reports about Lower or Middle Paleolithic artifacts on Crete and the nearby island of Gavdos. These are in the "Project Gallery" area of Antiquity -- papers in ths section are short descriptions of ongoing field projects and are freely accessible online.

    Peder Mortensen (2008) reports on a surface find of artifacts near Loutró, on the south coast of Crete. There's essentially no possibility of dating except on the basis of typology, which is pretty weak. But the article does give a good discussion of why the artifacts are genuine and not natural geofacts. Also, a short review:

    During the last 50 years a number of Middle Palaeolithic sites have been found and excavated on the Greek mainland, but Lower Palaeolithic finds are still sparsely represented (Bailey et al. 1999). From the Greek islands a chopping tool made of a strongly patinated beige flint, possibly associated with a palaeomagnetic date of 750 ka was reported from Corfu by G. Kourtessi-Philippakis (1999: 283-4, Figure 25.2), and from Nea Skala on Cephalonia a collection of flakes and blades found together with flint pebbles were thought to be of a Lower Palaeolithic date (Cubuk 1976: 175 ff.). Previously, several Middle Palaeolithic finds were reported from the islands of Corfu, Cephalonia and Zakyntos (see Darlas 1994: 308-14; Kourtessi-Philippakis 1999: 283 ff.), and recent research on Cephalonia has revealed several Palaeolithic surface finds, including two sites with flakes, choppers, chopping tools, and a single handaxe (Foss 2002/I: 61ff. & plates. AII: 13-16 & AIII: 1-16). With reference to finds from Epirus, and in particular to the inventory of the open-air site at Kokkinopilos, a Middle Palaeolithic date is suggested by Foss for the Palaeolithic industries found on Cephalonia, including the lithics found by Cubuk at Nea Skala (Foss 2002/II: 94-102).

    Meanwhile, Katerina Kopaka and Christos Matzanas (2009) discuss the archaeology of the island of Gavdos, off the south coast of Crete. The later record is interesting, but the Lower and Middle Paleolithic occurrences are mainly limited to the site of Ayios Pavlos. These are classified typologically, which is not especially convincing for the few supposed Lower Paleolithic artifacts. Concerning the early Middle Paleolithic, they write:

    Material from Ayios Pavlos Group 3 is also found at Vatsiana and Kavos, and includes scrapers, denticulates, Levallois flakes (Figure 5b) and blades or blade-like débitage (cf. Darlas 1994a: 312, 314) of an Early Mousterian (proto-Mousterian) industry compared to the typical Greek Mousterian. These artefacts have a yellowish-white patina. They can be dated to c. 120-75 kyr, i.e. Marine Isotope Stage [MIS] 5a-d, usually attributed to Würm I (Gamble 1986: 76, 86). Although the preferred raw material is (and was to remain) the local black flint, some pieces are made of flints from as yet unidentified sources - possibly from Crete, obtained during cold phases of the Würm whencommunication with neighbouring coasts would have been less treacherous.

    These are enough to say that there are several sites with archaeology consistent with Neandertal-era or earlier occupation on Crete. Julien Riel-Salvatore discusses the issue in some more detail ("Lower-Middle Paleolithic island living?"). If it's true, an early occupation of Crete would require watercraft. People seem to keep talking about Africans coming north in boats more than 120,000 years ago, but I see no reason to assume this. I suppose they might have washed out of the Nile delta on a log raft. But I think the faunal turnover before 300,000 years ago would be the logical time to infer presence of a new carnivorous species, and it's probably simpler to derive the boat-builders from Europe, particularly given the potential of small island stepping stones in the Aegean.

    All speculation until we see some more solid archaeological context; something better than typology.

    References:

    Kopaka K, Matzanas C. 2009. Palaeolithic industries from the island of Gavdos, near neighbor to Crete in Greece. Antiquity 83: Online.

    Mortensen P. 2008. Lower to Middle Paleolithic artefacts from Loutró on the south coast of Crete. Antiquity 82: Online.

    Tags: 
    Europe
    Middle Paleolithic
    Crete

  • Crete: Pleistocene port of call?

    Sat, 2010-01-09 09:42 -- John Hawks

    Bruce Bower reports on excavations by Thomas Strasser on the Mediterranean island of Crete: "Ancient hominids may have been seafarers".

    At Preveli Gorge, Stone Age artifacts were excavated from four terraces along a rocky outcrop that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. Tectonic activity has pushed older sediment above younger sediment on Crete, so 130,000-year-old artifacts emerged from the uppermost terrace. Other terraces received age estimates of 110,000 years, 80,000 years and 45,000 years.

    These minimum age estimates relied on comparisons of artifact-bearing sediment to sediment from sea cores with known ages. Geologists are now assessing whether absolute dating techniques can be applied to Crete’s Stone Age sites, Strasser says.

    I would set a high bar for evidence on this one. No details are available; it was a conference presentation.

    One possibility: According to Alexandra van der Geer and colleagues (2006), there was a faunal turnover on Crete 300,000 years ago. The earlier fauna included a 1.5-meter dwarf mammoth and dwarf hippos. The hippos were hoof-walkers apparently adapted to a "more terrestrial" activity pattern. Sometime after 400,000 years ago, this fauna was replaced. No more hippos or mammoths, and new, larger, mainland-derived elephants. As they wrote (125):

    The dwarf elephant may be large compared to the mammoth of the previous period, but it is still about 30% smaller than its mainland ancestor E. antiquus, which has a shoulder heigth of 3.7 m. The dwarf elephant has strongly curved tusks. It is still a matter of debate why this elephant did not reach a pygmy size.

    The arrival of humans is one possibility. Sondaar and van der Geer (2002) suggested that Sardinia-Corsica might have undergone similar turnovers induced by human arrivals during the Middle and Late Pleistocene.

    But that's entirely speculation. I want to see some dating and good descriptions of the artifacts and their context.

    If the artifacts found by Strasser represent a genuine occupation, the Cretans would presumably have been seafaring Neandertals. Or Preneandertal-derived hobbits. Man, I wish I'd made that one of the 2010 predictions!

    References:

    van der Geer A, Dermitzakis M, de Vos J. 2006. Crete before the Cretans: The reign of dwarfs. Pharos: Journal of the Netherlands Institute in Athens 13:119-130.

    Sondaar PY, Van der Geer AAE 2002. Plio-Pleistocene terrestrial vertebrate faunal evolution on Mediterranean islands, compared to that of the Palearctic mainland. Annales Géologiques des Pays Helléniques 1e Série 39, A: 165-180.

    Tags: 
    Late Pleistocene
    island biogeography
    Neandertals
    Crete
    Middle Paleolithic
    Middle Pleistocene
    hobbits
    Preveli Gorge
    Synopsis: 
    Stone artifacts on Crete may be Middle Paleolithic or earlier, putting Neandertals in boats. Maybe.
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Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.