Posted on 11/02/2010 8:57:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Cornell archaeologists are helping to rewrite the early prehistory of human civilization on Cyprus, with evidence that hunter-gatherers began to form agricultural settlements on the island half a millennium earlier than previously believed... professor of classics Sturt Manning, director of Cornell's archaeology program... "Up until two decades ago, nobody thought anybody had gone to Cyprus before about 8,000 years ago, and the island was treated as irrelevant to the development of the Neolithic in the Near East," Manning said. "Then Alan Simmons (now at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas) discovered a couple of sites that seemed to suggest Epipaleolithic peoples went there maybe about 12,000 or 13,000 years ago, much earlier than anyone had thought possible. The big question started to become in the field, well, what happened in between?" Subsequent finds pushed the Neolithic evidence on Cyprus back to around 10,000 years ago, but "no one has been able to fill in a 2,000-year gap between this possible first evidence of humans ever going near the island and apparent evidence of proper settlement and farming and agriculture," Manning said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cornell.edu ...
Classics and archaeology students work on a dig at Ayia Varvara Asprokremnos in central Cyprus. An archaeological survey team looks for early Neolithic material in central Cyprus. A map of major archaeological sites in Cyprus, showing the location of Ayia Varvara Asprokremnos, where early Neolithic material was found.
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The article says that they found these sites by concluding that searching along the waterfront was useless as the waterfront was not under water for early dates. These sites were found in the upland. It further notes that neolithic abilities for long distance oversea travel need to be reexamined. However, I would like to know what the sea levels in that part of the Mediterranian were like 13,000 years ago or earlier. Perhaps they did not have to travel very far by water.
Sorry, meant to say early sites NOW underwater.
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