A map of the eastern Maghreb in North Africa, including (1) Afalou Bou Rhummel; (2) Djebba; (3) Doukanet el Khoutifa; and (4) Hergla.Image credit: Google Earth
Posted on 03/27/2025 7:49:03 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
According to a Live Science report, European hunter-gatherers traversed the Mediterranean Sea in primitive boats and visited North Africa much earlier than previously thought. A new study sequenced the DNA from nine individuals who lived in modern-day Algeria and Tunisia between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. The surprising results revealed that some of them may have been descended from Mesolithic Europeans. The genome of one particular man buried at the site of Djebba in Tunisia indicated that at least six percent of his DNA could be traced back to European hunter-gatherers. These results suggest that the individual's local ancestors mixed with Europeans around 8,500 years ago. This is the first clear evidence that the two geographically separate groups intermingled at that early date. Although no boat remains have been found to date, experts theorize that groups from Sicily may have voyaged across the open sea and reached North Africa using long wooden dugout canoes such as the 7,000-year-old examples that have been found in Lake Bracciano in central Italy. "Several decades ago, some biological anthropologists proposed that European and North African hunter-gatherers had made contact, based on morphological analyses of skeletal traits," said University of Vienna researcher Ron Pinhasi. "At the time, this theory appeared overly speculative. However, 30 years later, our new genomic data has validated these early hypotheses. This is really exciting."
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
A map of the eastern Maghreb in North Africa, including (1) Afalou Bou Rhummel; (2) Djebba; (3) Doukanet el Khoutifa; and (4) Hergla.Image credit: Google Earth
Waiting for a Federal District Judge to order them all back..................
The Strait of Gibraltar is about 8 miles wide. I could see Neolithic people wandering down Spain, seeing land from on top of the Rock of Gibraltar, and deciding to paddle over, then going east across the North African coast.
Setting out from Sicily with no idea of whether you would find land before dying, seems a bit ambitious. I could see it happening after it became common knowledge that land was there.
One can see Africa from southern European coast.
Chuckling. Your post reminds me of the SNL parody of Sarah Palin saying “I can see Russia from my back porch”
Haha that was my intent!
>>The Strait of Gibraltar is about 8 miles wide. I could see Neolithic people wandering down Spain, seeing land from on top of the Rock of Gibraltar, and deciding to paddle over, then going east across the North African coast.
>>Setting out from Sicily with no idea of whether you would find land before dying, seems a bit ambitious. I could see it happening after it became common knowledge that land was there.
A Gibraltar Dam has been postulated to have existed which would have allowed land migration from Spain to Africa. Theories of another dam from Sicily to Tunisia have also been put forward.
That dam was many millions of years ago.
According to AI which did the research:
The Atlantic Ocean last breached the Strait of Gibraltar and filled the Mediterranean Sea approximately 5.33 million years ago, in an event known as the Zanclean flood. This cataclysmic event marked the end of the Messinian Salinity Crisis, a period during which the Mediterranean basin had partially dried up due to the closure of the Atlantic-Mediterranean gateway.
The flood began as a small trickle when the land bridge at Gibraltar started to subside. Over several thousand years, this trickle grew into a massive torrent as water eroded the channel, eventually reaching an estimated flow rate of up to 100 million cubic meters per second. This enormous influx of water raised the Mediterranean’s level by up to 10 meters per day at its peak.
The refilling of the Mediterranean basin was remarkably rapid:
Up to 90% of the refilling occurred in less than 2 years, possibly even within a few months.
The flood carved a 200-kilometer-long channel through the center of the Strait of Gibraltar.
Global sea levels dropped by 10 meters as the Mediterranean filled up.
This event is considered the most abrupt global-scale environmental shift since the extinction of the dinosaurs. It not only refilled the Mediterranean but also transformed the regional climate and ecology, effectively “rebirthing” the Mediterranean Sea
...and returned for our women!
Ahem...they were state-of-the-art boats....
>>That dam was many millions of years ago.
there is also a theory put forward by Paulino Zamarro of a more recent land bridge (possibly due to silting in the channel) based on references in ancient writers (Seneca, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo). The timing of the breach varies from 9,000 B.C. to 400 B.C.
Also, see:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/601935/posts
She really said you can see Russia from Alaska, which is true.
YOU WIN POST OF THE DAY
😁😎.............................
I am always amazed at how dense the archaeologists are about human sea travel. Humans have been sailing the seas for at least a 100,000 years.
If it was a good route for the barbarian German Vandal tribes to get to Africa is as good enough for ancient hunter gatherers.
Sailed—or floated on an adrift fishing boat?
Did the hunters ever get back? Inquiring minds.
I would be shocked to learn that there wasn’t considerable back and forth between Sicily and North Africa. Humans had populated the world by then and managed to canoe to the Pacific islands, a much more rigorous trip than Sicily to North Africa.
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