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A team of researchers at the University of Patras's, OCEANUS- Lab has found evidence suggesting that early human ancestors (extinct hominids) may have sailed across the Aegean Sea.In their paper... the group describes analyzing sea level drops in the Aegean Sea during the time of early human ancestors and the possibility of such ancestors walking over land bridges to get to what are now islands in the area...In this new effort, the researchers challenged this theory by conducting a study of global glaciations and sea level drops in the Aegean Sea. Their work involved studying sea level markers in river...

More than 4,000 years ago builders carved out the entire surface of a naturally pyramid-shaped promontory on the Greek island of Keros. They shaped it into terraces covered with 1,000 tonnes of specially imported gleaming white stone to give it the appearance of a giant stepped pyramid rising from the Aegean: the most imposing manmade structure in all the Cyclades archipelago... Archaeologists from three different countries involved in an ongoing excavation have found evidence of a complex of drainage tunnels -- constructed 1,000 years before the famous indoor plumbing of the Minoan palace of Knossos on Crete -- and traces...

Unlike its larger, postcard-perfect neighbors in the Aegean Sea, Keros is a tiny rocky dump inhabited by a single goatherd... more than half of all documented Cycladic figurines in museums and collections worldwide were found on Keros. Now, excavations by a Greek-British archaeology team have unearthed a cache of prehistoric statues -- all deliberately broken -- that they hope will help solve the Keros riddle... British excavation leader Colin Renfrew now believes Keros was a hugely important religious site where the smashed artwork was ceremoniously deposited.

FULL TITLE: Sprawling Greek monuments built 4,500 years ago on 'the world's oldest maritime sanctuary' reveal the impressive engineering skills of Bronze Age islanders Excavations around Keros show the technological prowess of Bronze Age Greeks Researchers found the remains of terraced walls and giant gleaming structures The structures were built using 1,000 tons of stone dug up six miles away Together they turned a tiny islet near Keros into a single, massive monument A remote Greek island known as the 'world's oldest maritime sanctuary' was once covered in complex monuments built using stone dug up six miles (10 km) away....

A rocky islet and a nearby hillside have yielded evidence of one of Greece's oldest and most enigmatic ritual sites. Imported stones and fragmented marble statuettes show that Dhaskalio and Kavos were "a symbolic central place for the Early Bronze Age" in the Aegean, according to Professor Colin Renfrew. Kavos is a stony, scrub-covered slope on the Cycladic island of Keros. Forty-five years ago Professor Renfrew, then a PhD student at Cambridge, found extensive looting there, with fragments of marble bowls and the famous Cycladic folded-arm figurines scattered across the surface. The date of the Dhaskalio Kavos site, based on...

ATHENS, Greece - British and Greek archaeologists are preparing a major excavation on a tiny Greek island to try to explain why it produced history's largest collection of Cycladic flat-faced marble figurines. Artwork from barren Keros inspired such artists as Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore but also attracted ruthless looters. Now experts are seeking insight into the island's possible role as a major religious center of the enigmatic Cycladic civilization some 4,500 years ago. Excavations will run April through June. "Keros is one of the riddles of prehistoric archaeology," said Peggy Sotirakopoulou, curator of the Cycladic collection at the Museum...

Archaeologists have made a huge discovery with signs of habitation stretching from the Protocycladic era until the 7th-8th century AD, which was unearthed at Vryokastro on the island of Kythnos, the site of an ancient city, and the nearby islet Vryokastraki that was once connected to the island by a narrow isthmus. The excavation work was carried out from June 24 until August 4 and finds include an early Christian basilica with later additions, including two towers and strong exterior walls, a number of rectangular rooms partly carved from rock that was used until late antiquity and obsidian tools and...

Archaeologists in Greece have found Roman remains in a submerged ancient port on the Cycladic island of Kythnos, the Greek culture ministry said today. The archaeologists found the bearded head of a man and the torso of a warrior wearing a Roman-era breastplate at a depth of 2.5 metres underwater in the island bay of Mandraki last month. It is unclear whether the fragments were part of the same statue. They had apparently been used as building materials in a wall running along the harbour, the ministry said. The age of the fragments has not been certified. The Romans became...