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02.06.2023

Greek archaeology started a quarter of a million years earlier than thought: 700.000 years old site found

Paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati was part of survey and geoarchaeological research at Megalopolis

In an open coal mine in southern Greece, researchers have discovered the oldest archaeological Greek site, which dates to 700,000 years ago and is associated with modern humans’ hominin ancestors.

The find announced Thursday would drag the dawn of Greek archaeology back by as much as a quarter of a million years, although older hominin sites have been discovered elsewhere in Europe. The oldest, in Spain, dates to more than a million years ago.

The Greek site was one of five investigated in the Megalopolis area from 2018 to 2022 in a survey and geoarchaeological research program with the aim to discover new archaeological sites dating to the Palaeolithic period in the area of the Megalopolis lignite mines, as well as to study and reconstruct the paleoenvironmental conditions and the geological evolution of the basin.

It was found to contain rough stone tools from the Lower Palaeolithic period — about 3.3 million to 300,000 years ago — and the remains of an extinct species of giant deer, elephants, hippopotamus, rhinoceros and a macaque monkey.

The project was directed by Panagiotis Karkanas of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Eleni Panagopoulou from the Greek Culture Ministry and Katerina Harvati, a professor of paleoanthropology at the University of Tübingen. It was funded by the European Research Council (CoG Project "Human evolution at the crossroads".

The five new Megalopolis archaeological sites provide a unique opportunity to investigate human behavior and adaptation through time during an important period of human evolution and in an area that has so far been understudied. The preliminary study of the palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic evidence suggests that all sites are associated with cold environmental conditions, in agreement with their chronological placement in the glacial periods of the Middle Pleistocene. Therefore, the overall evidence indicates that the Megalopolis basin served as one of the southernmost refugia for the early human populations of Ice Age Europe.

The systematic survey of the lignite mine’s artificial tiers that have been created by the mining activities of the Public Power Corporation of Greece (Figure 1) revealed new archeological sites in stratigraphic context, including the oldest-dated Lower Palaeolithic site in Greece (around 700 thousand years before present), as well as the oldest Middle Palaeolithic site in Greece and one of the oldest in Europe (ca. 280 thousand years before present). For the dating of the sites, an array of methods and new techniques were employed, including paleomagnetism, optical luminescence, electron spin resonance, uranium series, cosmogenic nuclides, as well as biostratigraphic and lithostratigraphic analysis and correlation.

The oldest site, dated to approximately 700 thousand years before present, is Kyparissia 4 (Figure 2) and was found about 70 meters below the present ground surface (before mining activities). The site yielded lithic artifacts with Lower Palaeolithic affinities (Figure 3) together with remains of extinct fauna (Figure 4), such as giant deer (Praemegaceros), hippopotamus, rhinocerus, elephant, as well as a tooth belonging to the rare monkey Macaca sylvanus (barbary macaque). The stratigraphically younger, close-by site of Kyparissia 3 has yielded primarily elephant bones associated with stone tools. At the site Marathousa 2, dated to about 450 thousand years before present, a partial skeleton of a hippopotamus associated with stone tool remains was found, showing evidence of butchering – a rare example of hippopotamus exploitation in Pleistocene Europe.

Of great importance is the site of Tripotamos 4, which was found about 15 meters below the present ground surface. The site is dated to around 400 thousand years before present and is characterized by a high-density accumulation of lithic artifacts that feature new elements in the lithic production techniques compared to the older archaeological sites, thereby placing the site at a critical point in the technological developments of the late Lower Palaeolithic.

Finally, the Choremi 7 site was found about 8 meters below the present ground surface and is dated to around 280 thousand years before present (Figure 5). The lithic assemblage of the site shows typological and technological features typical of the Middle Palaeolithic (Figure 3). The faunal remains consist primarily of fragmentary bones of deer, some of which show evidence of human modification.

Greek Ministry of Culture / Antje Karbe